


Reaching for a Ghost

by Ywain Penbrydd (penbrydd)



Series: Vexation of Spirit [10]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), Shadow Unit, The Lone Gunmen (TV)
Genre: Abduction, Birthday, Birthday Sex, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, M/M, Mind Meld, No Gore, Press and Tabloids, Torture, electric shock torture, more tags as i figure out what's going on!, nerds in lust, nobody in this relationship knows what they're doing, shameless cryptid smut, television quality depictions of hacking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-09-17 06:47:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 39
Words: 121,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16969734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penbrydd/pseuds/Ywain%20Penbrydd
Summary: The essential truth of life is that nothing stays the same. One learns, one grows, and sometimes one comes back from the dead to kick ass and take names. Or that's what it looks like from the outside, anyway. The hunt for Helmsman continues, and our heroes discover an awful lot about themselves and each other along the way.





	1. Chapter 1

JJ turned around, from where she'd been peering into the breakroom, to find Solomon Todd behind her. "Looking for Villette? I wouldn't go in there, you might burst into flames."  
  
Duke chuckled. "What's he doing, this time?"  
  
"I think they're playing poker." JJ's eyebrows arced up in a way that expressed all she thought of that idea.  
  
"You're kidding me." Duke leaned around the other side of the door, peering in at the two men playing cards over a whole pot of coffee. "Your boy thinks he can beat _Villette_?"  
  
"Reid's just that good." JJ shrugged, a little defensively.  
  
Duke shook his head. "Not _that_ good. Villette's... not operating on the same plane. It's not physically possible to bluff him, and I meant that completely literally."  
  
They watched as Chaz squirmed uncomfortably in his seat, hissing, "You _cheat_ ," across the table at Reid, who looked entirely dispassionate.  
  
"So do you." Reid smiled wryly, sliding another two creamer cups into the middle of the table. "I'm merely defending my lead."  
  
Duke watched them curiously, trying to figure out what Reid was doing, and if he was going to have to tell Falkner they'd adopted another stray beta. Whatever was going on at that table was not normal -- he knew normal; he'd lost to Chaz enough times to know what normal looked like.  
  
Sweat broke across Chaz's forehead and his knuckles turned white where he gripped the table, the hand on his cards undisturbed, as he looked like he might swallow his lips.  
  
"My money's still on Villette," Duke decided.  
  
"He looks like he's had way too much coffee." JJ shook her head. "Count me in for Reid. Loser buys lunch."  
  
"For us, not for them," Duke clarified, and JJ nodded, not quite understanding the difference. "Done."  
  
"I hate you so much right now," Chaz panted, staring dizzily at his cards and trying to remember what he'd meant to do with them.  
  
"You could always stop trying, and we could finish this out like two perfectly normal individuals with outrageous card counting and statistical abilities." Reid's smile was a little too smug, and JJ glanced at Duke hoping for a clue, but he looked just as lost as she was.  
  
"But that's not the game we agreed to," Chaz argued, finishing with his cards and shoving more creamer cups into the space between them. "I'm winning this on the terms we agreed to."  
  
"Are you sure?" Reid asked, closing his eyes and taking a few slow breaths as Chaz curled over coffee in front of him, knocking his head against the table with a choked off whimper, his entire body shuddering.  
  
Chaz's hand clenched on the edge of the table, and Reid looked like he'd been slapped, the cards sliding out of his hand as his eyes rolled back and his mouth rounded around a stunned "Oh."  
  
Hands shaking, Reid carefully picked the cards out of his lap and re-ordered them, bending down for the one on the floor, before Chaz sat back up. "I still think you should fold."  
  
"And miss out on the spoils, when I win?" Chaz drew a shaky breath. "You can go straight to hell, do not pass 'Go', do not collect two hundred dollars."  
  
"What the hell was that?" JJ hissed, side-eyeing Duke.  
  
"I know what that _looked_ like..." Duke blinked a few times as the game continued, both opponents shivering under a light sheen of sweat.  
  
"Call," Chaz finally decided, his face twisting in horror as Reid laid his cards out. He tossed his own cards on the table. "Next time I'm pushing harder."  
  
Reid stretched his legs under the table, looking like the cat that ate the canary. "Make my day."  
  
"Shit." Chaz laughed and tossed a creamer cup at Reid, gathering the cards back into a deck. After a moment, he looked up. "I'm still worried about this. Promise me you'll tell me if I start pushing too hard. i don't want to hurt you."  
  
"Even if you do break through, I've had worse." Reid shook his head. "I'm not worried about it."  
  
"It's not about worse, it's about I don't want to be part of it happening again. I don't want to do that to you," Chaz insisted, stacking the creamer cups into a castle of moderate size.  
  
"I trust you--"  
  
"Don't. Not with this." Chaz looked up, catching Reid's eye. "If I slip, even a little... If it gets away from me, I will do irreparable damage."  
  
"I'll tell you if you get close, but I won't fear you." Reid pushed his chair back and stood. "Not even the way you fear yourself."  
  
Chaz opened his mouth like he might protest that description, but his eyes lingered on Reid's and some unspoken thing passed between them. "Call me, later, and tell me where I'm picking up dinner."  
  
Reid batted his eyes, innocently. "Picking up dinner? And here I thought I'd get you to cook, after that win."  
  
"Thought we were working at yours. I'm not cooking in that shoebox you call a kitchen. I lived in one room and I still had a bigger kitchen than you."  
  
"Not tonight. It's getting claustrophobic in there. I need to be able to _go_ home."  
  
"Yeah, all right. That's fair. Hafs is going to be ecstatic -- Frank's coming over _and_ I'm cooking enough for all of us." Chaz turned around, finally spotting the two faces in the doorway. He paused. Blinked. "Work. Serious business."  
  
"Serious enough to bet on. You just lost me a good lunch!" Duke complained, watching for a reaction.  
  
"I just sold myself as a kitchen slave for the night. He's better at this than he looks." Chaz stepped out of the way to let Reid past him, and he caught the way Duke sniffed audibly when Reid passed.  
  
"So... what was I watching?" JJ asked, as Reid ducked past her.  
  
"Five-card draw." Reid offered a bland smile. "And he almost beat me, too."  
  
"That did not look like any game of five-card draw I have ever seen, played, or watched you play." JJ folded her arms and cocked her head at Reid.  
  
"Five-card draw featuring enhanced interrogation techniques." Chaz wiggled his fingers.  
  
Duke's eyes rounded and he shot a look at Reid before tipping his head back to look all the way up at Chaz, beside him. "And he _still_ beat you?"  
  
Chaz shrugged slowly until his shoulders stopped by his ears. "What can I say? He's pretty good for an alpha."  
  
"You cheat; I cheat. I'm just better at it." Reid smiled entirely impolitely.  
  
"For now." Chaz huffed.  
  
"Break me, and I'll buy you dinner." The smile stayed in place.  
  
"If I break you, Frank will _kill_ me." Chaz squeezed out of the room, between the two people still in the doorway. "Speaking of Frank, you pick him up? I've got to get dinner started."  
  
"Sure. I have to pick up a few boxes anyway, if we're working at your place, tonight."  
  
The two nodded at each other and parted, headed for opposite ends of the building, leaving JJ and Duke still standing in the doorway of the breakroom.  
  
"Enhanced interrogation techniques?" JJ made fingerquotes.  
  
"Villette's got some ... special skills. And yes, he _can_ cheat at cards with them." Duke shook his head. "I've just never seen anyone fight back. Sure as hell not with any level of success. Sure as hell not _like that_."  
  
" _Fight_?" Both of JJ's eyebrows migrated toward the ceiling and she turned to look after Chaz. "That didn't look like _fight_..."  
  
"Like a pair of stags." Duke pointed. "I should catch him before he leaves for the day."

* * *

"How the hell are you so cheerful?" Hafidha asked, reaching around Chaz to steal a potato fritter.  
  
He smacked her hand with a spoon, which did nothing to discourage this behaviour, but he had to at least make the effort.  
  
"I know you. You are not an innately cheerful person. And you've been a wall of mope since ... well, you know." Hafidha waved the hand not holding the fritter dismissively, and took a bite. "Mmm, ginger. You do love me."  
  
"Please, it shouldn't take ginger in the batter for you to notice that." Chaz laughed, counting dishes and checking the time on the oven again.  
  
"That's it, isn't it." Hafidha leaned her back against his arm. "You're in looooove. Not with me."  
  
"And not with Spencer, either." Chaz reached up to slide a tray of rolls into the warmer.  
  
"Ew, of course not. That would be creepy." Hafidha hoisted herself onto the one part of the counter that wasn't covered in half-finished food, leaned over, and pulled a bag of chocolate truffles out of the freezer. "Frank."  
  
"Just because you have a crush on Frank..."  
  
"Not relevant, baby brother!" Hafidha bit into a chocolate and purred with delight. "These are so good. I am so spoiled. Why didn't I move in with you sooner?"  
  
"Because I spent years fending you off with pastry in the office." Chaz adjusted the temperature on the lower oven with one hand and poured a bowl of barley into a pot with the other.  
  
"Point is, we're not talking about me, we're talking about you." Hafidha put the other half of the chocolate into her mouth and licked it into her cheek to dissolve, while she kept talking. "And you are unreasonably cheerful. It's freaky. I like it, but it's freaky, even for you -- especially for you. So my bets are still on you falling madly in love with Frank."  
  
Chaz stopped and tipped his head back, squinting and chewing his lip as he considered the idea. "No, that's not me, that's definitely Spencer. I _can_ tell the difference, you know."  
  
"You had to think about it."  
  
"I just wanted to make sure I wasn't getting bleed." Chaz shrugged and stirred the pot with the barley. "And I'm not. Besides, you know what I look like when I'm in love. This isn't it."  
  
She did know, and she hadn't seen it in a very long time. There was a lot less fluster in whatever he had going with the happy couple from down the hall, but she liked the way they made him smile, all the same. Maybe it wasn't love, but for once in the entire time she'd known him he almost looked like he fit in his skin, like he wasn't looking for an excuse to shrug it off and leave it to whoever'd hooked him with a question, this time. He'd found people who didn't look at him like a freak or a curiosity -- and sure he had her, he had their team, but neither she nor the team particularly wanted to sleep with him, where Frank and Spencer very definitely did. Loudly.  
  
"Something's up," Hafidha insisted, mouth once again full of chocolate. "You're not like this."  
  
"Maybe it was time to be something different." He held her gaze a long moment, face perfectly still. "You should--"  
  
"Get the door." She finished the sentence and winked, hopping down from the counter and licking the chocolate from her fingers as she headed that way. "He dropped into the network about three blocks out."  
  
Chaz listened to the banter in the doorway, not wanting to take his eyes off the food. It was good having friends -- not that he didn't have friends before, but since Daphne... no one really visited just to see them -- either of them. When they wanted to be seen, they went out. They went to holiday parties, to clubs, he still went climbing. Everyone they worked with knew where to find them, but no one dropped by to talk shit and play video games. And he supposed that was still sort of the case, now, but he'd still totally mopped the floor with Langly in a PvP match, last weekend. They worked, but they knew when to stop working, when to slow down and do other things, how to wait for the pieces to fit together.  
  
He could feel Reid behind him, from the kitchen door. That had gotten easier, with time -- whether or not he could use the mirror without line of sight, he could absolutely find Reid in a Metro station with his eyes closed. He wasn't sure how he felt about that -- if it meant the Anomaly was about to gift him with some new horror that would keep him inside for months until he got a handle on it.  
  
"You just staring at my ass, or...?"  
  
Reid's attempt to cover a laugh by clearing his throat didn't quite work, producing an amused squeak. "No, I'm... Watching you cook is really calming."  
  
"That's just you." Chaz glanced over his shoulder and offered half a smile. "Most people get a little nervous, but they don't see time and space like you and I do."  
  
"They just know they can't do it, so they assume you can't do it." Reid shook his head and leaned against the cupboards just in from the door. "You... I can see the pattern. I know how it works, even if I couldn't repeat it. _He_ makes me nervous, but that's more the amount of hot oil I've watched him wipe off his glasses."  
  
"I'm pretty sure he's figured out how to deep fry everything. Are we _sure_ he's not Scottish?"  
  
"I've never asked," Reid admitted, after a moment. "He doesn't talk about his family. None of us do."  
  
"And I like it better that way." Chaz picked up a pot that should have been too heavy to lift one-handed, moving it to a back burner, as he tipped the other pan with the other hand, squinting at the contents. "But, in honour of your boyfriend's ability to thrive on untempered grease, there's Korean potato fritters in the warmer. English fritter, not American fritter. More like tempura, but a totally different batter."  
  
"How much did you cook?" Reid blinked, finally realising how much of what was piled across the counters was actually done or nearly so. "It only took us three hours to get here!"  
  
"Please, I've been doing this for decades. If I couldn't do it quickly, I'd have died years ago." Chaz waited a beat and when the disbelieving laugh didn't come, he looked over his shoulder. "I have to cook for the week, anyway. I do half the prep while I'm unpacking the groceries, and then it's just putting it all together, later. Have you seen our freezer? Not this one, the proper one. You could fit most of a cow in it. And I've got six burners, and my bakeware fits together like tangrams, if I'm not doing round cakes. Everything's about temperature and timing. Once you figure out what you can put in with what else, stews and casseroles become the default, and then throw together a few other things just to keep it from getting repetitive. Bread goes in when I get home from work, most nights. That's kind of essential, and I've been fucking off about it, because I've been staying with you so much."  
  
"Sorry."  
  
"No, that's not what you should be sorry about. You should be sorry your kitchen sucks and there's barely anything in it." Chaz snorted and shook his head. "You know Duke was on my ass, today, about you being a beta? I told him I'd seen what you eat in a day, and you'd be dead."  
  
"I--!" Reid managed a single syllable and a moderately offended look.  
  
"He's right. You don't even drink your calories." Langly stepped into the kitchen and looked disappointed at the lack of things he could turn into finger food without making an ass of himself.  
  
Hafidha squeezed between Langly and the doorframe. "If we're all in the kitchen, that means it's a party, right?" She offered the bag of melting truffles to Langly, maintaining a tight grip on it.  
  
"Not if we're all still wearing shoes," Chaz protested, turning off the heat on the upper oven.  
  
"So, how are the chances of us getting any food down before we start working, again?" Langly asked, sucking chocolate off his fingertips. "Because Fitz just pulled a connection straight out of his ass, and I want the two of you to look at it, before I go after it. I don't like it, but I think he might be right, and I'm really into the idea of getting some of whatever smells so good, before I demonstrate, once again, that my kung fu is the best."  
  
Hafidha elbowed him and snorted. "Fight me."  
  
Langly sized her up. "After dinner."  
  
"During dinner. Keep it fair. Food on the table."  
  
Reid looked entirely put-upon, when Chaz looked back, again.  
  
"Half an hour until food, and if you're going to duel at the dinner table, you get to do it at the other end. I don't want to wear my stew, because one of you slapped the table."  
  
Langly huffed and sputtered. "That's--!" He paused, blinked, and tipped his head. "Probably fair. Hacker tourney at the other end of the table. You and me versus the Black Queen."  
  
"Pick something difficult," Hafidha scoffed. "Or did you forget I built half the system you're going through to get to her? Besides, there's one of her, two of us, and she can't do the things we can do. It's not even a challenge. If we both hit her, she's going down."  
  
"You and me versus Belmont Computing. The government contracts."  
  
Hafidha's eyebrow slid smoothly upward. "You're on."  
  
"Whoever gets the dirtiest secrets wins."  
  
"Done."


	2. Chapter 2

"Social engineering doesn't count!" Hafidha argued, loudly, smacking the table hard enough that Langly flinched, Reid put a hand out to steady his bowl, and Chaz took a very long look at her, trying to figure out how far he could let this go, before he had to order an evacuation so no one would be in the way when the Bug reared up.  
  
"Social engineering is half of good hacking," Langly shot back, smugly nibbling on a potato fritter. "You should've seen it coming when I said 'Belmont'. I fucking set you up, and you walked right into it."  
  
"I will burn your network to the ground." Hafidha hissed, wide eyes gleaming in the light from above. And those were really nice contacts, Langly thought, and he'd ask her about them once she calmed down.  
  
"I wish you wouldn't. That's going to be a pain in the ass, and a lot of people are dependent on the information passing through there."  
  
"Ohh, don't tell me you set up a system with a critical bottleneck." Hafidha's laugh was the slightest step to the side of the cackle of an evil queen.  
  
Langly leaned back and crossed his arms, face hard with an intensity that seemed not to have been applied to an emotion, yet. "I'm not revealing anything about the architecture of the network, by which I mean good fucking luck."  
  
"Hey, if the two of you are done flirting down there, can somebody pass the fritters?" Chaz batted his eyes and waved.  
  
" _Flirting?_ " Langly gawked up the table in horror.  
  
"Chazzie, honey, darling sweet brother of mine..." Hafidha clasped her hands at her shoulder with a look so sweet, Reid reflexively counted the exits. "You stuck your dick in that. I'm not touching it. I should be pissed you got there first, but Down the Hall's got prettier and nicer. Shit, _Falkner's_ prettier and nicer."  
  
Chaz choked on his tea, and Reid tried to wipe the smile off his own face with his napkin.  
  
Langly rolled his eyes. "Penny's like twelve."  
  
"She's like forty," Hafidha shot back, before jabbing a finger toward the other end of the table. "And you're older than me, and both of them are younger."  
  
Langly blinked a few times, and his lips pulled tight. "Yeah, but I knew her when she probably actually _was_ twelve. Them, not so much."  
  
"I think she said she was sixteen."  
  
"I'd believe that." Langly nodded.  
  
" _Grandpa_ ," Hafidha teased.  
  
"Can you _not_?" Chaz complained, standing up and taking his empty bowl with him.  
  
"Hey, _you_ are not that much younger than me, Rabbit."  
  
"Which is obviously why you're banging my little brother, _Ringo_."  
  
"He's over thirty, he's hot, and he's into me. I'm not seeing a reason not to." Langly's eyes gleamed as a final shot coiled on his tongue. "And he sucks dick like he's got a degree in it."  
  
"Can _you_ not?" Chaz stood at the edge of the kitchen, a fresh cup of tea in his hand. "Can both of you just ... _not_?"  
  
"Maybe we should let them finish this argument in peace," Reid suggested, standing up with his own dishes.  
  
Chaz hesitated, eyes on Hafidha. It had been a very long time since she'd gotten more dangerous than throwing something of her own out the window, but the aggression at the table still made him nervous. He was, after all, even after all these years, her keeper. If something went wrong, it was on him. He nodded slowly, stepping aside so Reid could get past him to the dishwasher. "Grab a box, take it upstairs, poke Fitz?"  
  
Reid shrugged and made a non-committal sound, as he figured out where to put things in the dishwasher. " _We_ probably shouldn't be calling Fitz, to be honest. But, I think I've got something -- or the start of something. It doesn't quite work, and I'm hoping you're holding the missing pieces."  
  
"Ooooh." Chaz's eyes lit up and his fingers curled in anticipation. "Gimmie."  
  
Hafidha cleared her throat loudly. "And before Thing One and Thing Two start thinking they got away with something, what did I hear from Duke about the two of you dancing the dirty tango in the breakroom?"  
  
"Lies." Reid leaned back to see her past the edge of the cupboards.  
  
"Come on, it's _Duke_." Chaz shrugged. "We were playing cards."  
  
"And cheating," Reid admitted. "But, there was absolutely no dirty tango."  
  
"Fine." Chaz rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue. "We were testing a theory, before either of us went into the field depending on it. Mind games. No dirty tango. And I really don't think there are any positions that would work in that would also lend themselves to five-card draw."  
  
"He's right. At least one of us would very definitely be able to see the other's cards, which would really defeat the point of the exercise." Reid shook his head and stepped into the space between Chaz and the cupboards. This close, they really didn't look that much alike. "Besides, dirty tango in the _breakroom_? Have you _met_ us?"  
  
Chaz cleared his throat and looked away, eyes round, lips tight in his teeth.  
  
Reid's eyes dragged slowly to the side, seeming to lead his head. "What? With who!? In the _breakroom_? _How?_ "  
  
"Not the breakroom. Not at work. Nobody you know." Chaz paused and tipped his head. "Nobody I know, if I'm going to be honest about it..." He kept his elbows close to his sides and sipped his tea, eyes fascinated with the contents of the cup. "There may have been a few nightclub walls involved. Maybe a bathroom sink."  
  
Reid's face went blank, but a faint flush crept across just under his eyes, and his voice came out just a little higher than expected. "Bathroom sink? Really?"  
  
Langly rested his chin against his palm, fingers stretched across his mouth, and said nothing.  
  
"Wh--" Hafidha looked back and forth between Reid and Langly. "Wait, wait. Bathroom sink? The two of _you_?" She pointed at Reid and looked at Langly. " _Him?_ "  
  
"Are we having this conversation? I'm pretty sure I came here to actually work, and not to have this conversation." Reid's smile turned as brittle as his eyes were bright, and he felt Chaz nudge him -- an intentional tap at the edge of his mind. He knew Chaz could slip in seamlessly, and usually did, but he always appreciated the warning, the _request_ , when they weren't engaged in something where it would just be expected. After a split-second's consideration, he slapped a memory of Langly's reflection in the bathroom mirror against the point at which they joined. And he knew that was an illusion, the point of contact _and_ the force of the delivery, but giving form to the formless made it easier to manipulate.  
  
Beside him, Chaz's eyes rounded. Another sip of tea hid the rest of the expression that slid across Chaz's face, but Reid could feel it as if it were his own. He knew they'd be having this conversation later, and with very few words in it.  
  
"And now that we've descended into the depths of things nobody needed to know, I think myself and I are going to go have a brief conversation about patterns and statistics." Chaz tossed an arm across Reid's shoulders, something both of them handled smoothly, as if parts of a single well-oiled machine, and then stepped backward toward the other exit from the kitchen, Reid moving like his shadow.  
  
"Pull up Fitz's data," Reid suggested. "We'll be back in a few minutes, and I definitely want to see what he's come up with, but we really need the quiet to get through this part."  
  
"Mmm." Hafidha didn't sound convinced.  
  
"No, I'm... actually serious. There's a ... thing. But, we can't have anything else going on, or it falls apart."  
  
Chaz nodded, setting his cup on a cooling rack as he kept on toward the stairs. "We're still working the bugs out. Eventually, it'll be a party trick. Right now it's kind of a quiet room trick."  
  
"If the two of you get loud, I'm giving you so much shit, when you come back down," Hafidha warned, rolling her eyes at Langly. "How do you put up with it?" she asked, as the sound of feet on the stairs receded.  
  
"Put up with what?" Langly pulled his laptop over, shoving his plate down the table to make room. "There are two hot feds who have transcended the bounds of human existence, and four or more days a week they both want to use me for sandwich meat. I haven't felt so good about something since I moved to Baltimore. I mean, yeah, they could both turn around and get me killed -- that's not a small bounty -- but, even then? No regrets. Got what I wanted and had a good time doing it." He paused in his typing. "You forget how long I've been dead. Everything's just extra, now."  
  
"No, not _that_. Do I look that attached to monogamy or human limitations?" Hafidha shook her head, absently spooling Langly's data between her fingers, as it came in. Weakened the signal, a little, but no one but the two of them would ever notice it. "How's the relationship, with him flipping through your brain?"  
  
Langly looked over the screen. "I'm not the one of us you want to ask about that. That's all them."  
  
"And _that_ doesn't bother you?" The words were deceptively simple, and Chaz wasn't there to see the shift in her eyes.  
  
"Why would it? Again, two hot feds. Hacker sandwich. And they both know exactly what's going on. It's freaky shit, but it's like the best of late 80s japanimation clone porn." Langly shrugged, pulling Byers's data together into a more coherent form. "It's hot as hell. You just can't see it because he's your brother."  
  
"We're not actually related." Hafidha tipped her head down in an oddly drunken motion and rubbed at a spot on the back of her head.  
  
"Yeah, I got that part. Doesn't actually matter, does it?" Langly smirked. "He's your brother, therefore his sex life is gross." And when he put it in those terms, it made the whole thing with Byers even weirder, which sucked, because he'd finally about gotten over that.   
  
"Doesn't stop the evil twins from going at it like ferrets on E."  
  
"I think that's different. There's not really a word for what they are, for what they're doing." Langly stared into the space between his glasses and the screen, sifting through all the weird sci-fi he'd absorbed over the years, hoping a word would stand out to him. "Borg collective of two. Or that weird Vulcan psychic marriage thing. Still, what are you going to call them? Twins. Clones, maybe, but then people start asking uncomfortable questions."

* * *

Upstairs, the hot feds in question were stretched out across Chaz's bed, together, fully clothed and dimly lit, staring at the ceiling.  
  
Chaz sighed, still sorting through the connections Reid had drawn, the patterns that almost took form except for the missing pieces. "I know we're supposed to be working, but it's going to bug the shit out of me if I don't ask..."  
  
Reid's eyes focused, his mind still running permutations of the data as he managed a few slow words, trying not to lose his place. "You really want to know, huh?"  
  
"You gave me just enough to make me curious. Where even _was_ that?" Chaz found where part of his own research fit into what Reid was building.  
  
"Boston. We went for a day, ate at a very fancy restaurant, of which that is the bathroom."  
  
"Did you just call that a coke bathroom?" Chaz blinked and laughed.  
  
"I think that was him, not me." The smile was audible in Reid's voice. "But, he's right. Look at it!"  
  
"Less interested in the bathroom. More interested in the mirror, or at least what it saw."  
  
The memory slowly washed over Chaz, seeping into his mind, warming his body until pleasure blossomed at the ends of his nerves, teasing the inside of his skin. Langly's face in the mirror. Langly's hip sharp in their hand. Langly's slick, tight ass clenched around them, and the wet dribble across their knuckles. Reid's body, his own body, it didn't matter. Not like this. But, that squeeze in their chest, that breathless ache that numbed their fingers, that was Reid, and _that_ mattered.  
  
"Still afraid of it, aren't you." Only Chaz's lips moved.  
  
"Always."  
  
"I wish I could say something, but I haven't found the way out, either."  
  
"I've started to wonder if the way out isn't pathological. If you don't ... lose something critical getting out from under it."  
  
"Cutting off a foot to get out of the trap."  
  
"It's just not worth it."  
  
"You're hoping he can force it open, aren't you?"  
  
"No." Reid finally turned his head to look at Chaz. "I'm hoping _we_ can."  
  
Chaz returned the look. "You have my sword."  
  
"I'm caught between 'thank you' and 'not yet, I don't'."  
  
"Go with the latter." Chaz rolled over, knees bracketing Reid's hips as he leaned down for a kiss.  
  
"Aren't we supposed to be working?" Reid teased.  
  
"We're good at multitasking." Chaz offered a lopsided smile, too close to be seen. "Besides, we're already halfway done, and they're probably still arguing."  
  
Reid stared contemplatively into the bare inch between them. "Trade me the other half of _one more_ , and then we should get back to what we're supposed to be doing."  
  
"Which--" The sentence stopped as Chaz caught the memory Reid slipped back to him -- himself and Langly up against the wall, beside the bathroom door, Reid half-watching them over the back of the couch, a book in his other hand. "I'm not imagining that. He really does that... thing. With his hips."  
  
"Almost every time."  
  
"On purpose? Tell me that's on purpose."  
  
"Not that I can tell. He didn't know he was doing it until I pointed it out. If he ever overcomes his objections, I think you're going to have to show him how sexy that really is. He didn't quite believe me, when I tried to explain."  
  
"Probably got hung up on the 'cat in heat' part, which really does make it a little weird, but does not change the fact that your boyfriend stretched out like a cat in heat is one of the hottest things I've seen this year."  
  
"I'd have to agree on all points. Going to give me the rest of that, so we can get back to work?"  
  
"Going to kiss me, while I do?"  
  
Reid reached up and pulled Chaz down the last inch by his hair, feeling that lean, hard body melt against him. "Yes."


	3. Chapter 3

  
"Anyway, the point is," Langly said, shovelling another bite of baked macaroni into his mouth, as Chaz leaned over his shoulder to read the screen. "The point is none of these people are alive, but all of them are still signing orders and requisitions. And as far as I can tell, they were all alive fifteen years ago. And, I mean, that's not the weird part. They're old enough that you'd expect that. The weird part is Byers thinks it's actually identity theft. Kind of. Inheritance. Kind of."  
  
"The name passes down with the position. So, Helmsman is probably the one claiming to be Ray Helm," Chaz deduced, following the trail of references Byers had laid out.  
  
"New question: Do we know if Ray Helm was actually Ray Helm?" Reid asked, sitting on the edge of the table, like he so often did while Langly was working.  
  
Chaz looked up. "Relevance."  
  
"It gives us more insight into how far back we need to go to dig this project out by the roots. If we're going to get it all, we need to know how and why it started."  
  
Langly put his plate aside and started typing. "So, the project _we_ know couldn't have started much before the sixties. There's some computer and networking components that are fundamental to what they're doing that wouldn't even have been imaginable much earlier. I know they were goddamn cutting edge, around the turn of the century. Kimmy went in, because he was just a little more familiar with the type of security they were using, and they bit back hard. Still? If I were going to make a guess? Late seventies, early eighties. I'm not sure there would have been any meaning in it, before that. Computer networking wasn't widespread enough as a concept for anyone to be seriously worried about the kind of trouble you could cause with it -- or for anyone in the government to be trying to cause trouble with it, before that. Not yet. I mean Wargames was a hilarious movie, but that really was the turning point in the public eye, and behind the scenes it was really only a few years earlier."  
  
Reid ran the numbers as he stared at the wall. "So, we're looking at something still a little earlier than Ray Helm, most likely. He was in his sixties, the last time you dealt with him, and twenty-five years earlier probably doesn't put him in a position where he'd be in control of something like this, whatever might have happened later. I mean, look at us. We've got how many doctorates, between us? But, we're still not really in a position to pull something like that."  
  
"The hell we're not, Spencer." Chaz blinked at him. "What the hell do you think we're doing? This is how it starts."  
  
"And that's a point for perspective," Langly muttered, fingers occasionally flicking off the keys after things only he could see. "He went hunting for something, and then made an institution of it."  
  
"What happens to us, when we break this?" Reid asked, quietly. "What do we become? How long before someone asks us to do it again, and will we, if we think it's just?"  
  
"We will." Chaz shrugged, pulling out a chair with his foot and dropping into it, next to Langly. "The key words were 'if we think it's just'."  
  
"We can't just turn into vigilantes," Reid argued, both hands tight on his ankle as he pulled it up over his other knee.  
  
"We're not really vigilantes, if we're working for the FBI," Chaz argued, leaning an elbow on the table. "As long as we're working on open cases and we keep Prentiss and Falkner in the loop, we're just two agents and a consultant on a special projects team."  
  
"As an investigative journalist, I feel like I should point out that I basically was a vigilante for like fifteen years, and this is not that different, except the part where if we get busted, the two of you have badges and a legitimate reason to be doing this shit, which means we're probably not spending a night in a cell in East Buttfuck, Minnesota." Langly stopped typing and cocked his head. "The accounts for this project only go back to eighty-seven, which means that's when they first got _funding_. I'm really pretty sure this is Overlord's baby."  
  
"So, what we noticed is that there's more money going out than is accounted for in the records Paul Asher gave us." Reid changed the subject, picking up on the mention of funding. "They're taking in money from somewhere else and not reporting it back, probably because the project doesn't technically exist. But, I think we found the money."  
  
"Real estate." Chaz nodded at the screen and Langly eyed him curiously, before filtering the records down to obvious purchases of buildings. "That's what he found, and I'm pretty sure he's right. There's a few spots that don't fit, where things are missing..."  
  
Reid started rattling off dates that weren't in the list of transactions Langly was holding.  
  
"Wait, wait. Are you sure about those?" Langly looked up at Reid.  
  
"If I'm right, they're in there, and we missed them." Reid shrugged. "Or I'm wrong."  
  
Langly tried again, but those dates yielded nothing that would have been a large enough transaction. He paused, typing the last one. "Wait, wait, did you say eighty- _six_?"  
  
"Yeah, why?"  
  
"Because the project didn't exist on paper until eighty-seven." Langly looked up with a grim smile.  
  
"So, I extended it back too far." Reid shook his head, confused.  
  
Chaz caught the implication. "No, you didn't. We're looking in the wrong place."  
  
"Give me a pattern back to seventy-seven." Langly folded his hands together in front of the screen and leaned back, stretching his arms. "The original funding isn't funding, because there's no account. It's private or corporate transactions, not government ones. And if the pattern's right, we can trace the money back to the beginning, and the money gives us the names."  
  
"We have the names," Chaz reminded him.  
  
"We have some of the names. We have the names as they were codified in the project's internal documentation." A smile tugged at the corner of Langly's mouth. "We already know the documents are lying, because all the names are dead. Lies, damn lies, and government paperwork."  
  
"You think we're going to find another zombie with a small fortune in holdings," Reid ventured.  
  
"I don't know, but the more tightly we can tie together the beginning--"  
  
Chaz snapped and cocked a finger at the screen. "The better we can anticipate the end."  
  
"Bingo."  
  
"And yet? None of this tells us who Helmsman is." Reid leaned back, gently sprawling across the table, palms pressed to his eyes. "But, it will absolutely give us enough to put a black mark on this project. And on the one hand, I should be glad it's getting shut down, and no one else is going to get dragged off to some black ops facility in the middle of the night, but on the other hand, if we don't figure out who these people are, we may not even get that guarantee."  
  
"Knock it off, that's my line." Chaz wadded up a napkin and tossed it onto Reid's chest.  
  
"Is that you?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Sorry."  
  
"My fault."  
  
Langly sighed. "Do the two of you have any idea how completely creepy that is?"  
  
Chaz laughed and elbowed him. "I thought you were into that."  
  
"And I have an extensive collection of early nineties tentacle porn. Doesn't make it not creepy, just because I like it."  
  
"Ew!" Reid protested, propping himself up on one elbow to blink at Langly in surprised disgust.  
  
"Tentacle..." Chaz cocked his head and blinked. "You? Really?"  
  
"Not like that." Langly rolled his eyes. "The animation's garbage, on most of them, so they pick up this weird flicker if you parse faster than it plays. The frame count's low, and it's kind of like being on acid. Especially the tentacles. Tentacles, tree branches, and anything that spins. So, yeah. Huge tentacle porn collection, because nobody asks questions when they find it, and it's still creepy as fuck." He paused. "And so's the two of you are one of you thing, which doesn't mean I don't like it."  
  
"You ever change your mind about getting laid from across the room, let me know." Chaz grinned and wrapped a finger in Langly's hair.  
  
"Not in this lifetime." Langly stared at the screen and nodded. "Privately funded, when it started, I think. Or... something. Assuming the dates are all Overlord, which may be a bad assumption, the first one is that one in eighty-six. And now I have to figure out what he was paying for."  
  
"Give us the records for the rest of them," Chaz volunteered. "Spencer's going to pass out from boredom, if you don't give him something to do."  
  
"No, I'm going to pass out from not enough coffee," Reid rubbed his face and groaned. "I stayed up all night editing this article I'm supposed to submit, tomorrow, and I know exactly what I'm talking about, and I'm right, and it still looks like garbage."  
  
Chaz looked less than thrilled. "Great. Not only did you kick my ass, you did it on no sleep, with an academic hangover."  
  
"I'm probably better at it when I haven't slept." Looking over his shoulder, Reid reached for the printer as he heard it warm up. "To a point, anyway."  
  
"Yeah, after that point he starts doing shit like telling me I'm gorgeous. Day three, he starts _seeing_ shit." Langly rolled his eyes as he dug through the enormous pile of service records, looking for something from the right year that would fit.  
  
"In my defence, most people start hallucinating around thirty hours." Reid pulled back with the first set of pages."And you _are_ gorgeous."  
  
"You need a nap," Langly retorted, eyes never leaving the screen.  
  
"You need a better self-image!"  
  
"Settle this, Villette."  
  
Chaz blinked slowly. "Ah... I... I'm gonna go with both. You're hot, and he needs a nap." He yawned. " _I_ need a nap. Call it off for tonight, and we'll remind you how hot you are, before we pass out on you?"  
  
"In a minute. Or... several. As the last person with any braincells on this team, I want to finish what I'm working on." Langly huffed and muttered something containing several expletives at the screen. "Start without me, and I'll wake you up with my dick?"  
  
"As much as I appreciate the image, I'm probably going to wake up the instant you put your knee on the bed, if not when you open the door." Chaz looked entirely amused as he looked over the laptop at Reid. "Bed?"  
  
Staring at the pages in his hand, Reid made an uncertain noise.  
  
"Yes, you can take it with you."  
  
"It's probably more comfortable than this table. How do I keep winding up lying on this table?"  
  
"Because I should get him a taller bed." Langly wrapped something only he could see around his fingers and pulled, eyes still on the screen, other hand darting across the keys. "Take the accounts and go to bed, before I start thinking about how good you look and drop something."  
  
"If it's your pants--" Chaz joked, getting up and nodding at Reid.  
  
"It's not going to be. I'd need a free hand for that."  
  
"Aw." Chaz offered Reid a lopsided grin. "Come on, I'll be the other half of your brain until we pass out in a pile of paperwork. I guess we have to stop tempting your boyfriend by being outrageously attractive while he's trying to work."  
  
"I think he probably just wants us to stop _talking_ while he's trying to get things done." Yawning again, Reid poured himself off the table with the stack of accounts in his hand and hesitated before he decided not to put a reassuring hand on Langly, before he left the room. "I've got this. We've got this. Did anyone see where I put my glasses?"  
  
Chaz held out a hand as he headed for the stairs. "I'll read it. Only one of us needs to be able to."  
  
"That's going to slow us down," Reid pointed out, and not for the first time, Chaz remembered his non-anomalous half was still better at a few critical things.  
  
"Other side of the printer," Langly muttered, making a gesture Chaz recognised from watching Hafidha work.  
  
"Thank you." This time, Reid kissed the top of Langly's head, leaving Langly still staring at the screen, now with a tiny smile, as he followed Chaz up the stairs.


	4. Chapter 4

Hours later, Langly dragged himself up the stairs, having gotten as far as he could before the headache caught up with him. Visions of warm bodies and half-awake hands on his skin played behind his eyes, right up until he opened the door.  
  
Chaz was half pushed up from where he'd slid into the space between the mattress and the wall -- not an entirely uncommon thing -- and Reid was crammed tight into the corner by the nightstand, knees pulled up to his chin. The account records were scattered, forgotten, across the blanket that had been kicked out of the way, at some point. Both of them looked terrified. Chaz looked _guilty_.  
  
"What the _hell_?" Langly demanded, frozen in the doorway.  
  
"Close the door. It's exactly as bad as it looks, but it's not dangerous." Chaz pried himself the rest of the way onto the bed, tugging at an edge of the blanket to cover his legs. He didn't reach for Reid.  
  
"We're okay," Reid promised, looking anything but. "We made a mistake."  
  
"Pass me the water?" Chaz asked, still staying well over on his side of the bed.  
  
Reid nodded and grabbed the bottle from the nightstand, tossing it to him.  
  
Chaz took a swallow and tried to figure out where to start. "We fell asleep, working."  
  
Reid took a few long breaths and started to unfold himself, holding a hand out to Chaz, who nodded and leaned back against the wall, beckoning with his empty hand.  
  
"If I fall asleep first," Chaz explained, as Reid joined him, close against his side, hand gripping his like a stress ball, "the connection closes. Which I hear is unpleasant and sudden, but it's safe. If he falls asleep first... I didn't know we could do that, and I'd be incredibly okay with it never happening again."  
  
Reid nodded like his head might fall off. "If I fall asleep first, the connection doesn't close. Or maybe it didn't close because I fell asleep while we were working on something, and we were both still using that information. I don't really know."  
  
Chaz filled in the blank. "We both have nightmares. We both have the kind of nightmares they give you sleeping pills for."  
  
"The 'wake up screaming' kind." Langly nodded, sitting on the corner of the bed. "I know Reid has them."  
  
"Sorry."  
  
"No. You don't get to be sorry. That's not a thing to be sorry about." Langly offered a lopsided smile, if a very, very tired one. "And you don't scream. You just sort of whimper and whine. I actually used to scream. Ask Byers."  
  
"You don't scream when you're more afraid something will hear you than you are of the dream," Chaz muttered, washing the words down with another swig of water, before offering the bottle to Reid, who accepted it without a second thought.  
  
It wasn't until the wet edge of the bottle touched his lip that Reid realised this was actually disgusting -- something he tended not to notice with Chaz, if only because the prospect of being revolted by a body he knew as well as his own, and in ways he only thought he'd ever know his own, seemed more ridiculous than usual. But, with the way Chaz had pulled so completely back into himself, Reid was left with a gap where the reassurance of safety should have been.  
  
"Apparently, with twice the brain, we have twice the nightmare." Reid's half-hearted chuckle fell flat, and even without the mirror to join them, he looked just as haunted as Chaz. "It's fine. We're fine. None of it was real."  
  
Chaz's lips thinned, but he didn't correct that last observation. None of it was real, _now_.  
  
"Do I need to go back down and make cocoa?" Langly looked exhausted. "Because if I do, you should tell me now. Once I get my pants off, I'm done for the night."  
  
"It's morning," Reid pointed out, almost amused.  
  
Chaz looked at nothing, for a long moment. "Yeah, would you? Cocoa powder's over the outlet next to the fridge, third shelf. Sugar's next to it."  
  
Reid looked surprised, looked like he might argue, but he took in the way Chaz's eyes stayed off Langly, the way they didn't quite focus, and realised they hadn't finished the conversation they'd been in the middle of when Langly finally came upstairs.  
  
"If I'm not back in fifteen minutes, assume I passed out on the kitchen floor." Langly huffed and walked out, pulling the door shut. Whatever it was, he wanted no part of it. He just wanted to go the fuck to bed. Preferably in the bed in which the evil twin feds were regarding each other like spooked cats.  
  
As the door clicked shut, Chaz shrugged out of his shirt, bending himself in half as he grabbed the back and pulled it off over his head, the wide scars clearly visible to Reid, who raised a hand and then stopped.  
  
"You want to touch them, don't you."  
  
"Not if you don't want me to, but they're part of you, same as any other part. But, it wasn't that, it was just... your back."  
  
Chaz sat up and stretched, reaching over his head, shoulders grinding. "None of it was real, tonight. Most of my parts of that were real somewhere else -- some _when_ else."  
  
"I know." Folding his hands in his lap, Reid studied them, trying to put something into words. "I know. I don't know if he knows, but I assume he does. But, you're right -- the point was that none of it was real _now_."  
  
Reid hadn't answered the implied question, and Chaz didn't push. If he needed to know, he'd know, but he already suspected the answer. He stretched out along the middle of the bed, knowing he'd have to move, when Langly came back. "Are we okay?"  
  
"We are. Lesson learned." A regretful look made an attempt on Reid's face, but he blinked it away.  
  
Chaz lifted a hand, rested his fingertips on the edge of Reid's knee. "Come back to me?"  
  
"Only if you fall asleep first, this time."  
  
"If you do, I'll close the connection. I didn't even realise you were asleep for ... probably a whole five minutes."  
  
"To be fair, neither did I, apparently. Working in my sleep..." Reid sighed and shook his head. "Not that uncommon, really."  
  
"Come back to me," Chaz said again -- an offer, this time, instead of a question, a corner of the mirror bared behind his eyes.  
  
Reid took a deep breath and leaned into it, unsure in a way he hadn't been in months. And then everything settled, still a little tense and raw around the edges, but almost normal. And when had he started considering this 'normal'? He felt his face respond to things that were only happening in his mind. Their mind? He knew he shouldn't be comfortable with this. He knew this was one of his worst nightmares, a complete violation of the only privacy he was ever truly guaranteed -- and now that was gone. And in dreams...

But, it didn't bother him the way he knew it should. Not because he had nothing to hide -- on the contrary, he had plenty to hide, years of things he'd never share, never mention. Not because he had some trust that Chaz would never step past the lines he'd drawn -- he had no such faith. Other people were unreliable creatures, to the core of their beings. No fault, just fact. No, it didn't bother him because he'd demonstrated he could deflect far more than just a casual query against his memory, and he knew Chaz _couldn't_ push hard enough without breaking necessary components in the fight. He was strangely all right with it, because he was relatively sure he could never be broken in a _useful_ way.  
  
The whole thought happened in less than a second, a dark flicker in the carefully arranged front-facing part of Reid's mind, and Chaz chased it, without a second thought, only to slam face-first into a memory of the ocean.  
  
"Sorry." Chaz looked up at Reid and twisted to glance back at the door. "That's not what I meant to do at all, and I wanted to do this before he gets back with the hot chocolate we're both going to want."  
  
"The hot chocolate you're going to wish I didn't drink, three hours from now." Reid breathed a soundless, self-conscious laugh.  
  
"I just did that to us both, didn't I? I'll suffer the consequences." Chaz dropped his face into the pillow, the rest of the words muffled. "Point is, you wanted to touch, and I want you to touch. But, I don't want him looking when I unload that on you."  
  
"Please don't hand me Texas."  
  
Chaz looked up again, eyes round and intense, face a shade lighter than it had been. "I would _never_. There are some things that are best left buried." He swallowed and tried again. "No, I just... it doesn't move right. It never will, and I had _good_ work done. I just don't want a gawker when I peel the pasties off what that actually feels like. There's... some things that aren't in the file, and I'm not giving you everything, but ... after everything I've taken from you, the least I can do is give you this." He shook his head. "That's still not the words I want. Look, it's a good thing, for certain values of good. You're curious; I'm willing."  
  
"Willing to let me behind you," Reid finally realised.  
  
"I have absolutely no reason not to trust you, while I _am_ you. I just want a couple minutes to get used to it, before there's someone else in the room." Chaz folded his arms under his face, gaining himself a sharp crack of protest from one shoulder. "I'm all yours. You'll know if it hurts, but that's really hard to do."  
  
Reid moved slowly, carefully, laying the tips of his fingers against Chaz's spine, first, rubbing gently to let Chaz get used to the idea. "Show me."  
  
The tension registered as pain, first -- like claws caught along the edges of Reid's shoulderblades. Most of the motion was back -- the 'good work' Chaz had mentioned -- but the pull along the edge of the scar never really went away. Chaz had just mostly stopped noticing it, it was as much a part of him as every other broken thing. But, he'd stood up on it, and just kept going. And that was something Reid understood and respected. And wished wasn't necessary, for either of them.  
  
The ache in his back, in his chest, the sickness that clung to the rim of his stomach in the wake of the nightmare -- he tried to hold onto that, to bury it, to keep it to himself. This reflection wasn't what Chaz needed, however equally most of it had run through both of them, even before they'd come back together. _Back_. That was Chaz, Reid thought, even if he didn't recognise it. And that entire line of thought vanished in a flash of silver and red across the back of his eyes -- eyes he could see reflected in it. No, were those his?  
  
Chaz invited, and Reid moved easily -- acceptance, desire, curiosity -- to kneel across Chaz's hips, both hands steady and gentle against the edges of the scars. That was nauseating, he noticed, after a moment.  
  
"Nerves are wrong," Chaz said, quietly, swallowing the spit that flooded his mouth at the sight of those scars, finally. This wasn't squinting over his shoulder in the bathroom, this was someone else's eyes square on him, and he watched the skin ripple under Reid's fingers. "Press harder, and they'll believe you."  
  
"I don't want to hurt you..." Reid protested, even as he let Chaz guide his hands until he all but kneaded the inner edges of the scars.  
  
"Trust me. I've had worse."  
  
Reid felt, rather than saw, the bitter smile that accompanied those words, just as he felt the nausea fade, felt a warm, liquid satisfaction take its place. A few misplaced shards of memory skipped across the distance between them -- hands when that skin was whole, hands too careful against the scars, hands that kept forgetting the scars were there.  
  
These hands were different, and as well as Chaz knew it, there was nothing like the genuine, tactile reminder that they were very nearly _his_ hands -- long, thin fingers cold against his skin. A thought, and they'd move how he wanted them to, even if that was entirely because Reid let it happen. Together, they took those hands and explored his skin in a way he'd never really had the chance to do. He'd run his hands over almost every other scar he had, and before he'd gotten these, that had been a part of his back he could reach. Funny how that worked.   
  
He could see, he could finally touch, and he should have been horrified. But, the horror was missing, for both of them. Not even a flicker. No horror and no relief. They were no better and no worse than he'd thought. As Reid had said, just another part of him, like any other. A part he already knew, in some ways, and that Reid had already accepted.  
  
"I'm not afraid of you," Chaz said, just to feel the weight of the assertion against his tongue, and before Reid could choose one, Chaz had seen both the answers vying for his tongue -- 'good' and 'that's extremely dangerous'. "I know it is. I also step off cliffs for fun."  
  
"You don't have wings. I hope you keep missing the ground." Reid spread his hands catching the bottom of the scars against the bases of his thumbs, and tipping his hands to see how much give the flesh had and where, exactly, it was tight.  
  
"Haven't hit it yet," Chaz joked, trying and failing to bury the other thought before Reid could grab it and unspool it.


	5. Chapter 5

Perhaps it was the imp of the perverse, but Chaz couldn't force it down, couldn't tear that memory out of Reid's view. But, he could tint it. He could turn it into a dream, a nightmare, which, really, it was, even while it was happening. Especially while it was happening. The nightmares never did justice to the real thing.  
  
Feathers -- blood and feathers. Two enormous wings in a rich, deep red, like distilled pomegranate, silver reflections of a thousand terrible things dancing across them like a masquerade ball seen through a crystal chandelier, the sound of a hundred screaming deaths compressed into a single channel ringing off them. And then the lights went out in the vision, and the flickers faded, leaving the impression of cold linoleum and the reek of blood and fermentation, sweat and mead.  
  
He shouldn't have been able to, but Reid grabbed the edge of the scene and didn't let go, reaching out his other hand -- did he even have hands, here? -- into the memory, into the dream, into the vision, and now the light was his, and every feather knew his eyes, all of them looking back at him, as he ran a hand along the sticky-wet feathers.  
  
And that's when it broke, splinters of dark glass tearing out as Chaz disengaged, pale-faced and panting apologies against his own forearm.  
  
"This is what you fear," Reid observed, quietly, as Langly came back in, three mugs gripped in one hand. "But, you can't hurt me with it. Not any more. And you _know_ why. There's nothing you can show me that's worse than I've shown myself. I know what I am; I have to look at myself every day."  
  
The first thing Langly noticed was that Chaz was face-down on the bed, shirtless, head turned away from the door, away from the open side of the room, with Reid perched on his ass. The next thing was that Reid's hands were kneading those wicked scars as if he were scritching the base of the wings on some enormous bird. Wings that obviously weren't there, whatever glimmer of utterly fucking weird hung over the bed.  
  
"Yeah, so, that shouldn't have taken so long, but I had to pour one out and do it again." Langly cleared his throat. "And by 'pour it out', I mean I drank it."  
  
Chaz groaned loudly, back bowing and shoulders grinding as he stretched and turned the other way, to look at Langly, one hand settling reassuringly on Reid's leg, as he propped himself up on the other elbow. "How do you fuck up a cup of cocoa?"  
  
"I made all three of them with milk, the first time." Now, Langly was sure it was safe to cross the room, and he did, easing the three cups onto the nightstand. He picked up the first one and offered it to Reid. "And now this one's water and extra sugar, with a little bit of marshmallow fluff."  
  
"You found my fluff, and you didn't bring it up?" Chaz groaned even louder, this time in exaggerated agony, made easier by the fact that he really wanted to stab himself in the eye and maybe move to Outer Mongolia. That had not been something he'd meant to show Reid at all, never mind all at once.  
  
Langly looked up from where he'd started unbuttoning his jeans. "Too damn late. Get it yourself."  
  
"Langly..." Reid took his other hand off Chaz's back and held it out, invitingly.  
  
"What?" Langly huffed, looking entirely put out. "Do _you_ want me to go get the fluff?"  
  
"No, I want you to come to bed."  
  
Langly's eyes drifted to Chaz, who was reaching for a cup of cocoa.  
  
"It's been a long day, and I have a very large bed with very fluffy blankets and only half the number of attractive people in it, with me, that I'd like." Chaz eyed Langly over the top of the cup. "I mean, I'll take what I can get. Don't let me push you into it. But, you are already halfway out of your pants."  
  
Langly looked down at himself, looked back up at Chaz, and shoved his jeans off with a huff. "You're in my spot."  
  
"Just warming it up for you." Chaz sipped his cocoa but made no attempt to move, partly because Reid was still sitting on him, with a hot cup of cocoa, and that was an accident waiting to happen.  
  
"I'll move," Reid said, not moving. "But, you took the time to make this for me -- you went out of your way to make different cocoa for me, because you remembered -- and I just want to appreciate it while it's still hot. I'd appreciate you while you're still hot, but you're always hot, so I think I have a few minutes."  
  
Langly took a deep breath and folded his arms, squaring up to say something moderately irritable, but he got his mouth open and registered the end of the sentence. He blinked a few times and settled on, "You're still delusional."  
  
"Maybe," Reid conceded, between swallows of cocoa "but you still benefit from it, and as delusions go, it's a harmless one. You're smart, you're gorgeous, you're kind, and I love you." He cricked a finger at Langly. "Come to bed. I'll climb over you in a minute, when I finish drinking this... I can't believe you went to the trouble--"  
  
"Maybe I didn't want you waking me up when you got up with a stomach ache in an hour or two," Langly muttered, kneeling on the edge of the bed and reaching for his own cocoa.  
  
"It's as good a reason as any."  
  
"Look, I get it," Chaz said, twisting around to look up at Langly as best he could without unseating Reid. "We left you working and came up to bed -- but that was you. We invited you, and you decided not to join us. But, when you got here, I-- and that _was_ me -- There are only so many people I can handle at once, after something like that, and again, _you offered_ to go get cocoa. All I did was take you up on it. I just needed a few minutes to get my shit together." Chaz sipped his cocoa and took a breath. "But, you're here, now. And things have gone from 'on fire' to 'smouldering uncomfortably', which is a start but if you're up for it I'd be happy to try for a more erotic smoulder. I need to be thinking about something else anyway. I'd like to be thinking about you."  
  
Reid made a small, surprised sound, and Langly just glowered, tiredly. "He's definitely thinking about you. Mostly your legs -- was that Florida? I don't think I was there for this."  
  
Chaz cleared his throat and squeezed his eyes shut. "Yeah, that... ah... I didn't do anything about it, but I was definitely thinking it."  
  
"You could've been doing something about it," Langly huffed, taking a swig of cocoa.  
  
"No." Chaz looked up at him. "It wouldn't have been right."  
  
"Don't put this on me," Reid protested, finishing his cocoa and leaning past Langly to put the cup back on the nightstand. "I already said whatever happened in Florida was between the two of you. I said it before you left."  
  
Chaz shook his head. "Still not right. Not the impression I wanted to make. Not really sure about the impression I _did_ make, but..."  
  
"The impression I'm _getting_ is that you like Reid _better_ ," Langly snapped. "And that's fine, but let's be honest about it."  
  
"Shit." Chaz shook his head. "You want honest? Here it is: you and I have a completely different relationship to what he and I or you and he have. I'm not in love with you. I'm not in love with him, either, but we're closer in some ways you've said you don't want to be to me, and I don't really think I _could_ be to most other people. As in, it's not actually _possible_. And that's probably for the best, in a lot of ways, even if I do wish I could share some of the little things. You're the one I wanted to fuck, first. You're still the one I want to fuck, and I would let you see that if you wanted a better view. Am I having utterly mind-blowing, reality-altering sex with Spencer? Yes. Yes, I am. But, it's not at all the same experience. It's not about 'better'. You bend over and my toes tingle. He gets the academic contemplation face, and I start going down my disaster checklist, because there's a decent chance I'm going to slip and turn both our brains into pudding. I like you. I want you. But, your boyfriend and I can do and have done a lot of damage to each other, and sometimes we just... have to clean up the mess."

It wasn't as honest as he could have been, but it was as close to the whole truth as he was willing to get, and none of it was _untrue_.  
  
"So, what about your back?" Langly asked, still suspicious.  
  
"I can't see my own back," Chaz pointed out, lips twisting in some implausible way. "He can. The nightmares..."  
  
Langly's eyes lingered on the scars. "Body bag full of vomit," he said, finally. "Except it never goes away."  
  
Chaz nodded. "I needed to _see_. You all right?"  
  
"I'm tired." Langly sighed and rubbed his eye, taking his glasses off after he knocked them askew.  
  
Reid moved back, and Chaz rolled onto his side, passing his almost empty cup to Reid.  
  
"Come to bed. If you're between us, you can at least be tired and warm." Chaz tried to straighten out the blanket.  
  
"How about tired, warm, and fucked into unconsciousness? Or did I make too much of an ass of myself for that?" Langly asked, stretching out next to Chaz, still uncomfortable, but differently uncomfortable.  
  
Reid climbed over them both to put the last cup on the nightstand and turn down the light to its lowest setting, a dim glow against his back as he slid under the blanket next to Langly. "Unconsciousness is up to you, but I'm pretty sure I've got a few fucks to give."  
  
"That was my line," Chaz sighed.  
  
"Oh, good. That felt like yours. I'd hate to think I'd gotten so casual with my vulgarity."  Reid smiled slyly as he leaned down to offer a kiss to Langly, waiting to see if Langly would take it.  
  
Langly looked just as tired as he said he was. More tired, even. But, he reached up and tucked Reid's hair back, pulling him down the last inch. The kiss was warm and sweet -- literally sweet, too, with the taste of the cocoa. This was what he'd been missing. This was what he'd forgotten in the hours since Reid had given him that one little, uncertain kiss. Still wasn't going to make a fool of himself over it... except for the part where he just had.  
  
But, he noticed that Chaz had pulled away from both of them, moving back toward the wall and leaving a slowly-cooling spot on the sheets.  
  
Reid turned his head, lowering his lips to Langly's ear. "Tell me."  
  
"I want you." Langly's hands were tense against Reid's skin.  
  
"How?"  
  
After a long pause, Reid sat up to find Langly looking glassy-eyed and a little guilty. "Just me," he guessed.  
  
Langly squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.  
  
Realisation lit Chaz's eyes, and he moved closer, running his fingers down the inside of Langly's thigh. The look he got back was regretful and exhausted, but with a faint glimmer of hope.  
  
"Let me?" Chaz asked.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Want me?"  
  
Langly looked like he might swallow his own lips. "Yeah."  
  
Chaz slid his hand back up, cupping Langly through his boxers. "Gonna kiss me after?"  
  
Langly winced with his entire face. "... Yes?"  
  
Chaz snorted. "That's a no. I know one when I see one." He ducked under the blankets, leaving Langly sputtering.  
  
"And me?" Reid asked, looking faintly amused.  
  
"Kiss me." Under the blanket, Langly hooked a leg over Chaz's shoulder. "I'm getting completely spoiled with this kisses from hot young feds thing."  
  
"I'll say!" Reid gestured to Chaz, and Langly had the sense to look mortified.  
  
Chaz nudged Reid's leg. "Hand me the lube?"  
  
Reid raised his eyebrows at Langly.  
  
"What are you looking at me for? Hand him the lube."  
  
"I feel like I could write an anthropological treatise on what just happened in this room." Reid got the lube from the nightstand drawer, a drawer with a good many other things in it that he politely ignored, and slipped the bottle under the blanket, into Chaz's waiting hand.  
  
"Grown-ass man too tired to correctly interpret situation, acts like complete asshole, magically forgiven by sexy young lovers?" Langly drawled. "Too long for a title, even on the front page." The next sound from him was a surprised gasp, and Reid curled close around his side, one leg tossed across Chaz's back.  
  
The kisses that followed quickly went from warm to hot and wet, teeth clacking as Langly panted and writhed, trying not to thrust up into Chaz's mouth. His hands clutched at Reid, one squeezing almost tight enough to bruise, as Chaz's fingers slipped into him. How had he ever imagined he wasn't wanted? He could feel the reckless lust in the hands on him, the mouths on him. How had he imagined, even for an instant, that either of these men didn't desire him? But, history made a good argument for repetition, and he thought of all the acquaintances he'd seen draped in groupies at cons -- even _Byers_ , that bastard -- and how it had never been him. Of course, he'd also been enough of an asshole about the line between working and pleasure that it was never _going_ to be him. Until now. And now he was going to make up for every second he'd been without, and with people who actually knew him and would come back for more. People who weren't in it for a quick fuck or a piece of image. People who weren't immediately disappointed when confronted with the reality of him.  
  
The reality that was once again demonstrating itself, but Langly thought Chaz was just too good at that for anyone's continued sanity. Chaz held him down with one hand as his hips bucked and his breath stuttered across Reid's lips.  
  
Reid realised that while Chaz had held back most of the experience, he could still taste it, a taste like Langly smelled, and then a splash of cheese-rind bitterness. It wasn't bad, even if he was still glad it wasn't his mouth. But, his mouth was still occupied muffling the howls of pleasure, as Langly bucked and writhed under him, Chaz obviously nowhere near done licking.  
  
And then Langly shoved Reid back, just enough to be heard, barely keeping his voice at a level that wouldn't wake Hafs and half the neighbourhood, exquisite tension in every word. "Fuck me. God, one of you just fuck me. Take me, do me, put it in me, _right now_!"  
  
Chaz poked Reid in the leg, and a few quick thoughts passed between them, as Chaz just kept licking.  
  
Reid untangled himself from the other two and kicked off the last of his clothing. "Me first," he purred, watching Langly's eyes nearly lose their colour to the widening pupils. "You can have us both, but me first."  
  
"God, yes," Langly breathed, looking utterly stunned. How had he ever doubted them? They wouldn't push, but all he had to do was offer. He hoped he could stay awake for all of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those of you in the chat have already experienced most of this chapter as I agonised my way through it. But, here it is unedited, because I haven't fucking slept an entire night in a week and a half, and I just want it off my desk. 
> 
> Those of you who were unaware of the chat or would otherwise like to hang out with other readers, there's a [Pillowfort community](https://www.pillowfort.io/community/Vexation%20of%20Spirit) that's currently mostly chapter updates and LGM gifsets, but we're totally open to whatever other mostly-on-topic shitposts and bad ideas you can manage. (And our Discord is linked from there, IIRC.)


	6. Chapter 6

Two days later, Langly was still a little sore, but he had no regrets. Except the part where he'd made a complete ass of himself. That was definitely a regret. But, he'd woken up the next morning with stars in his eyes and a cramp in his leg, wondering, once again, how he'd gotten so lucky. Aside from this Helmsman problem, life really was pretty good, and he kept wondering when the other shoe would drop. But, maybe it had. Maybe that was the whole mess with Susanne and Byers. Again. Again again, even.  
  
The two of them had been kept apart, since the rescue, which after the first few days, seemed to be for the best. She still didn't know quite how successfully she'd broken up with him, and he was still suffering the aftereffects of it. Still, Byers seemed to be recovering. Penny -- he couldn't think of her as the Black Queen, while she was in his living room -- had started coming over on the weekends, to watch films and tell Byers he was cute. And Langly had to admit he _was_ cute, now that he was mostly back to his usual bright-eyed self.  
  
But, today, Langly was supposed to be resting. Supposed to be not-working. Reid had said it the next morning, pointed out that they'd been, if in more polite words, completely up each other's asses for weeks, with no time off -- that even their non-working time had mostly been spent together, except whoever ran out to get more food. And Langly knew he was right. Things had to go back to normal, for a little while, or the three of them were going to kill each other over utter bullshit. Chaz had agreed, pointing out that prior to this case, he'd spent the majority of his time alone. So, they stepped back, took a day where none of them were supposed to be doing anything with the case or each other. After, to Langly's surprise, the day Reid spent doing nothing _with him_. And that had been just as good as he remembered -- warm sunlight and that leather couch, no half-finished sentences and frustrated expletives at the increasingly large pile of useless data they'd gathered. Just the two of them, lunch from the Ethiopian place, and some of those weird French ballads Reid sometimes liked that Langly thought sounded like a cat getting stepped on, but in French. Langly shot a pleading text to Chaz, and they finally managed to compromise in the vicinity of Siouxsie. That was something they needed to work on -- any two of them had _some_ overlapping musical taste, but the _three_ of them mostly didn't, and Chaz was right in the middle.  
  
Right that moment, though, he was building an empire, as he listened to Byers sing terrible songs written by and for men in terrible suits, the smell of fried egg wafting through the house. He could almost believe things were normal, that they were back to how they'd been before, but with different feds and more money. He tabbed to a terminal window and threw a message at Frohike.  
  
' _Still think we should've gone with the bikini girls on the front page._ '  
  
"Respectable publication, Langly!" Frohike called back, from the other side of the room.  
  
"What are we running, this week?" Langly asked, realising how far out of the loop he'd been, lately.  
  
"Allie's got some good stuff for us -- mostly filler, but the kind of filler that fucks up the careers of people who deserve it for doing exactly that kind of thing. She wasn't in deep, but the things she overheard in passing, because nobody notices the intern..." Frohike shook his head. "Byers and I did a little digging, and it mostly checks out, so we're running some more, this week. Also, got some more of Asher's work on the front page, which would make us a target, if the Post wasn't following the investigation, too. Still might. Are we safe?"  
  
"Probably."  
  
"That's a lot less sure than you usually are."  
  
Langly whipped his chair around. "Listen, I exist. Hafidha and Chaz and Susanne exist. I'm a lot less sure about absolutes, when I just turned into some kind of magical technowizard, with a terrifying mentor who keeps telling me not to put my faith in the protections of the expectations of consensual reality. So, yeah, I think we're safe, _mostly_. If they come after us with something like _me_ , though, we may have a serious problem. If they come after us with something like Hafs, it's probably game over."  
  
"What happened to your kung fu being the best?"  
  
"I levelled out of my weight class," Langly admitted, shrugging. "We're not talking about farm kid lays out the sysops at CalTech, any more. I'm a demigod, now, and I'm still figuring out what the hell the tools are, and how not to get them turned on me." He paused, smiling smugly. "Totally handed Hafs her ass, the other night, though. Finally won one."  
  
"Do I ask, or is this going to turn into something wholly incomprehensible?" Frohike's eyebrows crept above the line of his glasses.  
  
"I got her to duel me versus Kimmy. And then I told him, and he turned the entire network security team on her."  
  
"Cheater," Frohike argued.  
  
"Winner." Langly still looked smug. "They didn't slow her down that much, but it kept them on her and off me. All I needed was the extra couple hundred milliseconds to get in ahead of her and start shutting things down. Pull the data, corrupt the network drivers, force a shutdown sequence on the way out. Kimmy's a little pissed, but he'll get over it. He just hates losing to _me_. You should've heard him when I told him it was White Rabbit coming after him."  
  
"You are the exact same asshole you've been for thirty years."  
  
"That's what you like about me. I'm predictable."

* * *

The work had seemed insurmountable, when he woke to a still-black sky. A crushing weight behind his eyes and against his shoulders, a fear of slowing down, a terror of failure, but Reid got up and started on it, all the same, and by seven hours later, mid-morning, he had most of it done. If he just kept moving, everything would be fine. Review an article, clean something, stretch, start again. Near the bottom of the pile, he found something he'd been co-authoring with Byers, and his shoulders relaxed as he set that aside. He knew where that was going, and he'd get back to it once he dealt with everything else that had been piling up.  
  
 _Langly's birthday._  
  
The thought lanced through him, suddenly, bringing the needle-laced gaping agony back to the palms of his hands and the bottoms of his feet, and the pen slipped from his suddenly-useless fingers. When, which day, how soon? Next weekend. There was still time. There was still time for him to come back from this, before then. There was still time for him to figure out what to give the man who already had everything he wanted.  
  
He hated the days like this one, even as infrequent as they'd become. The days when the nameless fear of everything that came before, everything that had led to this point, sharpened itself into pain and bit into him, hooked its claws in all those places fear liked to show itself. When the terror of watching it all happen again spun itself into fine filament that seemed to make up everything in the world, and everything he saw reminded him of things he'd almost rather have forgotten, except for the part where his _worst_ fear was an inability to remember.  
  
And the horror was bad, but the guilt was worse. All the things he should've done differently, all the mistakes he'd made that had cost lives, and even the knowledge that he'd drawn the most reasonable conclusions with what he had available when he'd drawn those conclusions didn't make it any less his fault that he hadn't done better -- that was what he did, after all. Better and faster. It was what he was for. And it was what he'd done, but it still wasn't good enough. It was like holding back the ocean with his bare hands -- but if Moses could do it, why couldn't he?  
  
Why _couldn't_ he? He was already doing the impossible, as far as most people were concerned. He barely ate, he barely slept, and he did the work of four people, and still had time for himself. He knew better than to push harder -- there was a limit to how much it was possible to cut away, before it was time to call it an amputation -- but he lived right on the line.  
  
And suddenly he saw it. He knew why Langly kept showering him with gifts. Not that he hadn't known, already, but the dataset came into sharp focus with a new lens. By handling his background concerns and increasing the comfort he could derive from things he was going to be doing anyway, Langly was streamlining his life -- offering him more focus and energy to work with, because he wasn't spending it on other things. Focusing him on the things only he could do. Langly was trying to make sure he had the time and energy to have a personal life that work could then drag him away from. Not that he hadn't had one before. Just that the parts of it that involved other people were infrequent and generally at their urging. And now...   
  
He sighed. Now he'd taken the time and energy that had been set aside for that and dedicated it to this case. But, the case needed to be solved. The idea of Helmsman, and Overlord before him, disgusted him. But, as Chaz had pointed out, it could be said they were on the same path. But, no. They weren't going after random people on suspicions of wrongdoing that wouldn't even have been illegal. They were going after a predatory project that was doing a great deal more harm than good -- people with power who were misusing it. And wasn't that the justification for going after Asher? But, the project hadn't gone after Asher. They'd gone after his _family_. Reid thought he might actually have a little more respect for them, if they'd gone straight for Asher. A reasonable person with a firm ethical centre went after the target, not the target's _family_. Still predatory and a grotesque misuse of power, but an understandably targeted one -- go after the hand trying to pull the plug, and do it _directly_. After all, he'd done some things that weren't far off in motive, however much they might differ in execution.  
  
He picked up the pages Byers had sent back and skimmed the notes, before setting the document back where it had been. Reid closed his eyes and let himself focus on the work, forcefully changing the subject until the only thing on his mind was the implications of the dental formula of whatever that had been. A cryptid, his mind suggested, and he shoved that aside. Of course it was. It was an unidentified animal, approximately the size of a small bear, to judge by the size of the bite marks.  
  
One hand drifted down, opening a desk drawer and retrieving the bag with the yarn Hafidha had given him and the half-finished scarf. This was another one of those things that impressed Chaz -- he didn't need to see to knit. He didn't even need to think about it. The counting and the motions involved parts of his brain he could set in motion and leave to run like a metronome, while he did other things that didn't require his hands. Knitting kept time, while he worked on other things.  
  
His eyes stayed closed as he considered the original incident and reports Byers had presented. There was no question -- the bite was extremely clear. Whatever had made it was not native to the eastern seaboard, but the question remained: was it real? It seemed an idiot's question. The thing had bit someone. But that didn't mean it was actually an animal at all. He'd read a case, at one point, about a man who believed himself a werewolf and built spring-powered wolf jaws to live out his fantasy. Human ingenuity was such that he had no doubt what they were looking at was well within its bounds. The results on the fur, on the other hand, were more difficult to ignore. Those did suggest they were looking at an unknown creature -- one that appeared to be related to raccoons, though the dentition wasn't procyonid. Absolutely nothing he could name or even find had _two_ canines on top. He'd been sure there was a mistake -- he was still sure there'd been a mistake, and he'd seen the photos of the wounds and casts with his own eyes, and found no reasonable way to dispute that. And whatever the thing was, it had way too many teeth for his comfort. Still, an unknown giant, mutant procyonid living in the woods of Virginia was something he wasn't quite ready to concede, without more and better evidence. Even if the evidence he was looking at was pretty good, it was still a single incident, and there was a chance the fur sample had been damaged or misprocessed. It matched _nothing_. He was holding out for a human with a mechanical jaw and a raccoon-fur coat.  
  
The scarf, he decided, suddenly. He'd give Langly the scarf. Hafidha had spun the yarn, and he'd knitted the scarf. He could say it was a gift from both of them. And then maybe a walk along the river. There were things they'd meant to get away with, in the dark.

* * *

They'd taken the weekend as days of rest, and Chaz had spent Saturday doing anything but resting. Climbing was usually restful, he argued. It got his mind off things he didn't need to be thinking about. But, as he so often did when faced with things he couldn't solve, at least some of them caused by his own questionable choices, he pushed himself destructively hard, stopping only to eat and answer a text from Langly.  
  
Sunday, of course, his shoulders were so badly swollen he could barely move his arms. This many years later, and they still weren't right. He could still do that to himself. And he knew it. And he did it anyway.  
  
Anti-inflammatories before breakfast. Swallow past the burning in his throat. Coffee was exactly the wrong thing to put on top of that, and yet? Another thing he was going to do anyway.  
  
Hafs had figured it out when she found him on the couch with the blender and her twisty straw. He'd wedged it between his side and the back of the couch, so he wouldn't have to move his arm to drink the smoothie he'd made, both hands on the laptop propped between his legs and his chest.  
  
"I'm cooking lunch, aren't I?" Hafidha looked dimly amused.  
  
"You could just call for pizza, if you don't want to. I'm kind of... limited in what I can get into my mouth right now."  
  
Hafidha was glad Langly wasn't there to see the face Chaz made to go with that. It was a breakup waiting to happen. "Potatoes and gravy. I can manage that. And I can also manage another smoothie, if you can hand me the blender. Banana?"  
  
"Mango, but I'll take banana if I finished the mangoes. I wasn't really looking." Chaz reached across himself carefully, tipping his elbow up so slightly it was nearly invisible, to get his shoulder to snap loudly. Relief spread across his face, as he grabbed the blender pitcher and pulled it in front of himself. "Sorry, that's as far as that arm turns, right now. Grab me the naproxen from hell, while you're up? Maybe I'll stop feeling like I'm going to pass out every time I turn on the sink, before dinner."  
  
Hafidha retrieved the pitcher and squeezed herself onto the couch, elbowing Chaz's knees out of the way. "Okay, baby brother, what'd you do this time?"  
  
"I went climbing."  
  
"You know what I meant."  
  
Chaz sighed and tipped his head forward to rub the bridge of his nose without lifting an arm. "There was an accident, and then I did something stupid, and if the regrets don't kill me, Spencer's going to, when he figures out I didn't tell him what he was looking at."  
  
"You're vaguing, Chazzie. What'd you do?"  
  
"So, you remember that time I saved your life and scared the shit out of Brady, and he was terrified to look at me for weeks, because 'wings with a thousand eyes', and some other biblical shit?" Chaz sighed again, head still resting on the tips of his fingers.  
  
"How the hell did that even come up?" Hafidha leaned around the side of the laptop, instead of looking over it, blinking at Chaz.  
  
"Spencer and I are well into ... inadvisable experiments."  
  
"Oh, is _that_ what you're calling it?"  
  
Chaz ignored her and went on. "And the other night we fell asleep and ... I'm suddenly not sure that happened the way I think it did, but apparently it's possible for us to share nightmares. It wasn't one or the other; it was both, but in some weird combination. And you know I don't have the problems you do, but... this one makes me think I need to be sleeping more, so I _won't_."  
  
"Or, you know, maybe knock off the inadvisable experiments. Are you trying to piss it off on purpose?"  
  
"No, I'm trying to poison it." Chaz finally looked up. "The anomaly really doesn't like Spencer, for some reason, and I'm pretty sure I know why. And I'm pretty sure I'm going to keep giving myself that headache, because I like the results."  
  
"You like the results doesn't lead to suicidal climbing binges," Hafidha argued, running her finger around the inside of the pitcher and licking smoothie remains off it.  
  
"It was not _suicidal_! I just... stopped paying attention and 'should stop' got past me."  
  
"You usually fall a few times before you hit 'should stop'. I mean, it's pretty obvious."  
  
"I had other things on my mind!"  
  
"Wings with a thousand eyes. Don't tell me you showed him?" Hafidha stared through the long pause that followed. "Charles."  
  
"Not... really?"  
  
"Only a little?" Hafidha drawled, letting the tone carry exactly what she thought of that idea.  
  
"He thinks they're part of the nightmare. A reflection of _my_ fears."  
  
"They kind of are," Hafidha pointed out.  
  
"Yeah, but we're anomalous, so they're real and they work, too. And I didn't tell him that. And I'm not sure if I'm going to. I have used them--" Chaz paused, trying to remember what had happened in another world, one where conversations like this weren't possible, so he could filter those out of his answer. "--twice. Two times, and you were there for the second one. It's not like it's really likely to come up outside the context of nasty dreams."  
  
"But, you didn't tell him, and it bothers you enough that you fucked up your shoulders again."  
  
"I'm not sure he'd believe it, and I'm not sure what it would do to him if he did. Or, worse, if I proved it." Chaz tipped his head back and stretched his neck. "You remember what happened to Brady and his nice religious upbringing. Now consider doing the same thing to an atheist whose hobby, growing up, was medieval Catholicism. I'd rather not break him. I'd rather not let the dead reach back out of the grave and take something else away from me."  
  
"You're really into him, aren't you?"  
  
"You feed it well enough, and even a coyote will pretend to be a dog, for a while." Chaz smiled slowly, eyes drifting upward as his neck twitched with a suppressed shrug. "Besides, have you seen Langly's ass? Want one, get both, and I have never been so lucky in my life. They have each other. They just _want_ me."  
  
"You've never been good at settling for less. You know this isn't going to be enough for you. And then there's going to be the crying, and the blaming yourself, and the part where I make you take three days off and play through your favourite video game romance again with two gallons of double chocolate ice cream. And then you're going to look like somebody kicked your cat for a few months. We've done this before."  
  
"When's the last time I even tried? Just let me enjoy it, while it lasts, and you can tell me you told me so, after."


	7. Chapter 7

Langly, as it turned out, owned no jackets. The shitty windbreaker he'd worn for years had vanished with everything else he'd owned, after the shark thing, and he'd never gotten around to buying a new one. It just hadn't been that important at any point between then and now. But, it was the middle of October, and the first time he'd been outside in October in more years than he wanted to consider, and he was finally willing to raise the importance of owning something he wasn't going to freeze in. Thermal shirts were good, but the wind blew right through them.  
  
And that was how he found himself sitting in the second-fanciest restaurant he'd ever not been kicked out of, wearing a Pigface t-shirt with one of Reid's absent-minded professor looking suit jackets. With his hair tied back and his glasses on, Reid assured him he actually did look like an academic -- foreign literatures or maybe history. And now, here they were, looking like a pair of tenure-track jerks, sitting in a way-too-nice Italian restaurant he thought was way too close to his grave. For his birthday.  
  
"I just want you to know this is the weirdest birthday I've ever had. You know what birthdays looked like, before? Hostess cupcake with a candle in it, and the candle was because Fitz insisted. And then there was the time Jimmy bought an ice cream cake and left it in the car, because he wanted to surprise me with it. Oh, I'll tell you somebody was surprised at how that turned out. And then, since we... since we moved, it's been chocolate chip pancakes and Whiskey telling me I'm getting old, and then I get stupidly drunk, yell about the fact we're not out looking for Jimmy Hoffa, and spend the next day praying for death."  
  
"Well, I'm hoping this is an improvement." Reid looked much too amused as he dipped a bit of garlic bread in the dregs of the sauce on his plate.  
  
"It's... different." Langly glanced around the restaurant.  
  
"Try something else, next year?" Reid asked, sympathetically, wondering exactly how badly he'd fucked this up.  
  
"Maybe something a little more out of the way, next time. Someplace a little less ... 'see and be seen', you know? I keep looking around expecting to be recognised, mostly because there's at least three people in here I tried to have fired or arrested, maybe twenty years ago. I mean, I don't think any of them would know my face. FItz, maybe. Whiskey, definitely. I was mostly in the back. I mean, except a couple of times, but I don't see any of those people here."  
  
"Why were you in the front? Not to be rude, but... aren't most of your skills kind of... not the kind where people see you?"  
  
"See? You get that. I get that... No, that's not fair. They wanted someone who would look natural starting shit. I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm great at starting fights I can't finish. Most of the time I was just supposed to be an obnoxious asshole to keep the eyes on me. I'd get escorted out by as much security as I could get called on me, and they'd do what we came for in the five or ten minutes it took for that to happen."  
  
Reid blinked, realisation slowly settling across his face. "You weren't actually drunk for any of those drunk-in-publics, were you?"  
  
"Nope." Langly washed down a large mouthful of garlic bread, before he went on. "But, drunk-in-public is basically a get out of jail free -- or it was back then. You stay until the shift change, act hung over, and they pretty much just let you go with a warning, in most places. Sometimes, you pay a fine, but unless you argue about paying it, you just walk right out like nothing happened. It's probably not that easy, any more, but it used to be."  
  
Reid watched the last of the garlic bread vanish into Langly's mouth. "Did you want dessert?"  
  
"Can you afford dessert?" The question should have been rude, but they both knew why it was relevant.  
  
"You'd be surprised what I can afford." Reid let that sentence hang between them, his eyebrows raised expectantly. After a long moment, he delivered the rest of the thought. "I can't remember the last time I bought groceries, and yet, there's somehow always food in my kitchen. You really shouldn't be surprised I can afford it. You've bought all my groceries for the last two months."  
  
"I eat like six times what you do," Langly pointed out. "Feeding you? I might as well be feeding a cat. So, again, given what that tells me about your grocery bill, are you sure you can afford dessert?"  
  
"It's your birthday. It's not your concern." Reid smiled in a way that discouraged further questions. "Eat what you like, and then we'll walk along the waterfront, like people who aren't up to their necks in national security concerns. I seem to recall having promised you something, once, and I haven't had the opportunity to provide."  
  
"Oh, _really_?" Langly moved the empty plates to the edge of the table, hoping to summon a waiter. "And what are you thinking I need for my birthday, hmm?"  
  
"Twelve seconds. In public."  
  
Langly's eyes widened until they looked like they might fall out of his head, and then the smile followed. "Oh, really? Twelve seconds. In public. With a federal agent."  
  
"On the waterfront, where you can watch the stars." Reid tipped his head to the side and shrugged with the other shoulder. "I remember things. And then I hold onto them until they're useful."  
  
Langly reached across the table and took Reid's hand, loosely, half expecting him to pull away, surprise registering when Reid's fingers curled around his own. "I think this is one of the best birthdays I've ever had, even with the absolute panic and the fact that I've been scanning all the network traffic within a hundred yards of us, all night."  
  
Reid winced apologetically. "I'll get it right, next year."  
  
Langly shrugged. "Close enough."

* * *

As they entered the park, Reid stepped to the side and fished through his bag for something, finally coming up with a wrapped package that looked soft, the way his fingers sank into it, as he held it out. "If we're going to be standing around outside, I figure I should give this to you now."  
  
Langly looked at the package and then back up at Reid, as if expecting a punchline. With none forthcoming, he gingerly plucked the package from Reid's hand, tearing the paper off the squishy... what was that? Rolled... knit... He jammed the paper into his pocket, unfolded the thing, and found a scarf. "You got me a scarf, so I wouldn't get cold, tonight."  
  
"I didn't just get you a scarf. I knit you a scarf. Hafidha made the yarn, and I couldn't imagine anything better to do with it."  
  
Confusion twisted Langly's face and he stared at the scarf for a long moment, before letting his eyes drift back up to meet Reid's amusement. "Sorry, tinnitus. You _what_?"  
  
"I knit you a scarf." Reid's eyes sparkled.  
  
"Okay, one more time, because I could swear you just said you knit this scarf."  
  
"I did." Reid caught his lips in his teeth, trying very hard not to laugh. "That's a thing that I do, and you've never seen me do it, because the times I'd usually be knitting, I've got my hands full of... other things." He reached out and rested a hand on Langly's hip, pulling gently.  
  
Langly draped the scarf around his neck, slowly realising how long it was and that he had no idea how to wear it properly. He was pretty sure there was a difference between putting a scarf on as an adult and the way his mother used to put a scarf on him when he was too young to consider not wearing it. Still, he closed the distance, wrapping both arms around Reid's waist, resting his chin on Reid's shoulder. "This is the weirdest dream I have ever had, and I'm not sure I want to wake up from it."  
  
"I'd tell you it's not a dream, but I'm not really sure that would help." Reid held Langly close, taking in the smell of his hair over the autumn air and the river. "So, good choice? I wasn't really sure what to get the man who has everything."  
  
"So far, I love it, but if I break out in a rash, I'm giving it to Fitz."  
  
"If you break out in a rash, tell me, and I'll make one out of something else. You're not allergic to wool, are you?"  
  
"I don't wear it, so I don't know."  
  
"Well, this'll be an adventure..." Reid took a deep breath as Langly stepped back.  
  
"Weren't we going to do something even more adventurous?" Langly asked, as Reid adjusted the scarf on him, tossing one tail back over a shoulder so it wrapped all the way around his neck.  
  
"I think we were." Reid held out a hand and Langly took it, starting down the path.  
  
The sky was darker, here, than it was in the rest of the city, but the stars were still few and dull. They'd both been places with more impressive skies. Still, it hardly mattered, as they walked together, gazing across water that definitely looked better in the dark. Or the indirect light, anyway. The park was pretty well-lit.  
  
"I am on a date," Langly said, finally. "I am holding hands with my boyfriend, walking through a public park, in the -- I'd say 'moonlight', but it's so bright here I'd be surprised if it counted -- like this is some perfectly normal thing to do."  
  
Reid laughed. "From what I understand from conversations with other people _,_ it _is_ a perfectly normal thing to do."  
  
Langly tugged at Reid's hand, moving closer to the railing and looking at the lights across the river. "I could probably spit and hit Arlington from here."  
  
Reid let go of Langly's hand, wrapping that arm around his waist instead, as he stepped close enough to pin Langly against the railing. "Only if you mean the city and you can spit about a mile. Cemetery's further south."  
  
"I can't fucking believe she dug up my grave," Langly muttered, turning to put his own arms around Reid and Reid's hand in the middle of his back. "I'm still pissed about that."  
  
"You probably should be. That's somewhere around breaking into my apartment for invasions of privacy. Except for the dead part. But, still, you'd need an order of exhumation for a grave, just like you'd need a warrant to make it anything but B&E."  
  
"Okay, this conversation just took a completely non-sexy turn, and it was entirely my fault."  
  
"So, let's go back to the part where you're still alive and distractingly attractive." Reid's fingers tucked into the slit in the back of the jacket Langly wore, with a brief thought to how many people he knew who wore a gun there, as he pressed gently, rubbing just to either side of Langly's spine.  
  
"Oh god, you were serious, weren't you?" Langly pressed as close as he could get to Reid, burying his face against Reid's neck.  
  
"Unless you want me not to be..." Reid trailed off, fingers stilling.  
  
"It is going to be so uncomfortable to walk back to the car, after this..." Langly made a small agonised sound, and Reid tried to step back. "Don't you dare stop. I'd rather be wet than limping."  
  
"Tell me," Reid whispered, pulling the scarf aside with his teeth, pressing his lips to Langly's neck, and seriously hoping they weren't going to get interrupted by the intermittent patrol cops who theoretically existed to keep people from getting mugged along the promenade. This was not something he looked forward to having to explain. Still, he slipped the tips of his fingers just under the waistband of Langly's jeans, pressing in and down.  
  
Whatever Langly might have been about to say was lost in a long, shuddering breath as he melted against Reid, thighs twinging like he'd sprinted up a hotel's emergency stairs twenty storeys or so. "When we get home," he panted, "I expect you to finish this."  
  
Reid shifted his thigh, pulling Langly against it. "Finish? Oh, I was thinking I'd just be getting started. How many times do you think you can go? I thought maybe I'd find out. We've got tomorrow off. Aren't birthdays supposed to be a excuse for excess?"  
  
Langly's hips rolled, grinding him against Reid's thigh, and Reid stepped into it, turning them.  
  
"Back to the railing, if you're going to do that. I don't think you want to have to explain this, if we get caught."  
  
"Oh my god." Langly's entire body tensed, one leg winding around Reid's, nearly throwing them off balance as he arched and his head tipped back so far he felt his glasses start to slide. His lips pulled tight, the only sound a tiny squeak, as Reid nipped and licked at his throat -- and then something caught his attention. "We're being watched. Photos."  
  
Reid froze. " _What?_ "  
  
"Network's not lying to me. Digital camera, optical lenses, direct upload using the city wireless to... Fuck it, I'll figure that out later." Langly's hips rocked against Reid's thigh. One was never enough. "But, we've been followed for a while. From the restaurant. Got your badge?"  
  
"Don't leave home without it." Reid gave Langly's neck one more long lick -- look natural, he thought, easing back. Move like nothing's wrong. Another kiss, as Langly straightened his glasses.  
  
"Wanna go scare the shit out of this guy? I got an eye on the camera's wireless adapter. He can't ditch us, unless he drops it, and I don't think he's smart enough to figure that out," Langly purred against Reid's lips.  
  
"I very much want to do exactly that. I want to know who's following us and _why_."  
  
"He's pretending to take photos of the moon, I think, back the way we came. Clear night. Turn your head and you can probably see him."  
  
Reid nodded, an idea coming together. "Okay, it's pretty safe to assume he doesn't want to be noticed. He's not going to be able to get away from us, without moving from that spot, and he's not going to do it, if he doesn't think we're going for him. So, what we're going to do is race for the car. Loudly. He'll wait for us to pass, before he moves, except we're not going to pass. Think we can do it?"  
  
"Hey, I've been doing this shit since you were in grade school." Langly grinned and took a breath. "Goddammit, why is it so cold!? Shit, it's only October!"  
  
Reid stepped back, holding out an arm that Langly stepped into. "Good. You keep it loud, I'll make it look like we're both talking about the same thing." He laughed, and the sound carried, as they started back toward the car.  
  
After a few moments, the man with the camera was still aiming over the river, and Langly twisted away from Reid's arm. "It's god damn freezing! Come _on_! I'm just gonna run back."  
  
"I still have the keys!" Reid called after him, as Langly got to the other side of the cameraman, and Langly spun, mid-stride, almost toppling.  
  
"God _damn_ it! Hurry _up_!"  
  
Reid laughed and broke into a jog, Langly running back toward him, as if to get the car keys. He cocked his head and they turned on the cameraman, who realised far too late what was happening. Good. He wasn't trained to expect it.  
  
"Federal agents." Reid flipped open his badge and prepared himself to kick the cameraman in the knee, if he tried to run. "You want to tell me what you were doing taking photos of us?"  
  
"Landscape photographer." The guy shook his head. "I'm doing cityscapes. Did you really think--?"  
  
"Wrong answer," Langly cut in. "I've got all the network traffic in the area, and I know exactly what you've been shooting, H. Bollinger of the Ruby Mirror. Yeah, I know exactly who you are and where you're uploading to, and what I want to know is what some half-cocked gossip rag wants with us."  
  
"I mean... I knew you were feds. I saw the photos from the Fitzgerald kidnapping. Partners, right? And I thought maybe I'd get something about a new case if I followed you from the restaurant. It's not what I was _there_ for, but it could've been a good story, right? And then you started kissing and it turned into a human interest piece! Nobody's covered that angle yet! 'FBI's Homosexual Heroes' -- a whole thing about how times have changed, and these aren't the Hoover--"  
  
"We're not gay," Langly interrupted.  
  
Bollinger blinked, confused. "But--"  
  
"We're not." Reid shrugged. "Not the point. The point is you're not running the story, because the less pictures of us going around, the safer we are. And he's not my partner."  
  
"I'm not a field agent." Langly looked like only one of his eyes was focusing. "You can delete the photos of us, or I can make sure you lose everything you've shot tonight, including your backups. And I can make that happen in about fifteen seconds, without making any phone calls. That's what I do, and I'm just that good."  
  
"No! I'm not giving up my photos! I took them! You were in a public place!"  
  
"I'm not a public figure, and I'm asking politely," Reid said, quietly. "We're asking for our continued safety."  
  
"I'm gonna count backwards from three," Langly warned. "Three... two... one..." He paused. "No? I hope you weren't attached to that SD card. It'll never work again. And I've removed us from the server, too, so don't think you've gotten away with anything."  
  
Bollinger gaped at them, hitting buttons on his camera. "That's not how SD cards work. You can't have-- What? No, that's-- _What?_ "  
  
"Pursue corruption and expose it. Talk as much trash about the FBI as you like. But, I'm off duty, right now, and you need to leave my personal life out of it," Reid said, quietly, tucking his badge back into his pocket. "If you really want to write that article, contact one of the media liaisons, and maybe they'll be able to put you in contact with someone more willing to participate. But, I'm not, and I strongly suggest staying away from both of us."  
  
"I just want you to know I could've blown your memory card and nuked the entire server before you ever figured out I knew you were taking photos," Langly pointed out. "I'm the kind of dangerous your electronics don't want to meet in a dark alley, and next time I'm not going to be nice about it."  
  
"You can't just--"  
  
"Yes, we can. And we could as private citizens, as well, but I find the badge makes people _less_ nervous." Reid held Bollinger's eyes for a long moment, and then reached out and took Langly's hand.  
  
Langly stepped back, eyes still on Bollinger, as he pulled Reid away. "Come on, Special Agent Sexy. We've got better things to do, tonight." He pointed at Bollinger. "If you try to follow us, I'll take out your fuel injection."  
  
"That's not even possible!" Bollinger protested.  
  
"Do you know what that would cost to fix?" Langly smiled thinly. "Do you really want to take that chance?"


	8. Chapter 8

Chaz was laughing so hard he had to catch his breath, before he could say anything. "Wait, you threatened him with _what_?"  
  
"I said I'd take out his fuel injection. The controls are usually computerised, these days." Langly shrugged and nudged his glasses up.  
  
"Can you even do that?"  
  
"How the hell should I know? I didn't have to _do it_. He just stood there for like half an hour, trying to get the SD card to work again. Which it's not going to. If I can get to a storage device, I can corrupt it." Langly turned sideways, stretching his legs across the evil twins, and picked up his beer from the floor beside the couch. "And that's fun and new, but it works because it should work. I know how it works, and that's all I need -- as long as it makes sense, I can do it."  
  
"Well, yeah," Chaz said slowly. "That's what a mythology is. It defines the limits of 'makes sense'." He moved his own drink out of the way of Langly's foot. "But, go back a minute. You know this guy?"  
  
"Kind of." Langly tipped his head from side to side. "Harry Bollinger from the Ruby Mirror -- it's a gossip rag, but I make it my business to be aware of all the regularly-published independent papers, in town, even if none of us are using actual paper any more. I know the byline, not the guy. He's got no idea who I am."  
  
"Let's hope it stays that way." Reid leaned forward to pick up his drink from between his feet, before realising he couldn't reach, with Langly's legs in his lap. He shot Langly an exasperated look, and Langly switched hands with his own beer, leaned over, and handed the other bottle to him.  
  
"I think he was telling something enough like the truth that I'm not too worried, right now. If I see him again, I'm burning every device he owns. Which will be a real waste, because whatever I think of him as a writer, I do sometimes want to see if I can get him to do freelance photos for us. He's just... a little more unhinged than Frohike really wants to deal with, from the articles under his byline." Langly squirmed until he got his phone out of his pocket, and then realised he didn't need to and made a face to match the sudden onset of idiocy. Chaz's phone blipped. "Check it out."  
  
"Wait wait wait!" Reid's eyes widened. "Did you just send him the pictures from last night? Did you _have_ the pictures from last night?"  
  
"Of course I had them. There were some really good ones in there! And I only sent him the best ones."  
  
Chaz stared at his phone like he'd stopped breathing. "Holy shit, Spencer... You... That's... This guy's got an eye for it."  
  
"Which one?" Langly asked, as Chaz handed his phone to Reid.  
  
"The one where he's staring at you like you're made of dreams." Chaz looked confused and then like he'd remembered something he lost.  
  
The envy crept up Reid's throat, and he knew it wasn't his own. The dread that rose under it was, and as he raised his eyes to Chaz, the man finished the thought, and it wasn't at all what Reid had expected, even though he knew it to be the truth.  
  
"I wish I loved someone like he loves you." Chaz kept his eyes down, regret tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Not you, though. One's enough. Two's just asking for trouble."  
  
Langly laughed, shoving Chaz's shoulder with his foot. "It's a great picture, isn't it?"  
  
"Do I really look like that?" Reid finally asked, tapping the phone as the screen went dim.   
  
"Oh, yeah." Chaz nodded.  
  
"Definitely," Langly agreed, watching the twins put their heads together as Reid flipped to the next image.  
  
"Oh, _wow_." Reid's eyes widened. "I... You know, on the one hand, this is an amazing photograph, and I kind of want a copy to keep on my desk, _at home_ , and on the other hand, I am suddenly so glad we stopped Bollinger from running these."  
  
"Wait, what?" Langly sat forward, trying to see.  
  
"That's incredible. Why is this guy working for a tabloid nobody's ever heard of?" Chaz reached over and enlarged part of the image. "This should be hanging in a gallery in New York. Also, that's totally your o-face. I'd know that look anywhere." He pointed at Langly.  
  
Langly's eyes rounded. "Shit, shit, shit! I didn't mean to send that one!"  
  
"I'm with Spencer, except I actually have a bedroom. I want it poster-sized between the bathroom and the closet. I mean, look at it! How often am I going to see a perfectly rendered romance novel cover with two people I'm sleeping with? It's kind of a once in a lifetime thing!" Chaz paused, panning across the image. "And you're both gorgeous. This whole photo is just breathtaking. I could think of much worse things to wake up to, every morning."  
  
Langly had laid his hand across the top of his glasses, shading his eyes while the rest of his face turned a blotchy pink. "I'm taking that one back," he muttered, but the image didn't disappear.  
  
"I wish you wouldn't," Reid said quietly. "Delete it, if it upsets you, but ... I really like this one."  
  
"Why?" Langly hadn't been in motion, but he visibly stilled, as if some ambient vibration had stopped.  
  
"Should I show it to you? I think you know it in better detail than I can bring up on a screen this size."  
  
"I do. I could hand-write every pixel in it, and I hope I never have to."  
  
"This is the best photograph of you I've ever seen. And that might not be saying much, since most of the photos of you I've seen were booking photos or pictures of your corpse, but you just look good, here. And happy. Byers once told me you almost never look happy, and I've seen it a lot more than 'almost never', but not so often that I don't still stop to notice." Reid tucked his beer between the couch cushions and rested a hand on Langly's thigh. "And Chaz is right about the composition, too. It's blatantly romantic."  
  
"Pretty sure that comes in somewhere around the licking," Langly huffed.  
  
"Even without the licking!" Reid protested. "Even just from the shoulders down. There's no question of what this is."  
  
"He doubts himself," Chaz joked. "Needed to see some proof he was doing romance properly."  
  
Reid elbowed him a little harder than necessary, but didn't dispute the point.  
  
"Oh." The word sort of fell out of Langly's mouth, as he moved his hand away from his face. "That's your thing. Flowers and stargazing and long walks by the water. And I said I'd get you flowers, and you didn't want flowers, and then I just... went back to trying to buy you some peace of mind. Seemed easier. This was just so completely over the top, I thought you were kidding, right up until it was happening. So, yeah, if that's your grand romantic gesture for the year... you're giving me ideas."  
  
"Good." Reid lifted his hand thoughtfully, and then ran his fingers along Langly's cheek. "Let me keep it?"  
  
Langly huffed and rolled his eyes. "Fine. Pervert."  
  
Chaz cackled. "Not usually what people mean when they talk about amateur porn."  
  
Blinking, Reid looked at Chaz in stunned horror. "It is, isn't it. It's technically porn."  
  
"It's both pornography and safe for work. Congrats, guys." Chaz shook his head, still laughing. "Only you."  
  
"I'm sure it's been done before!" Reid protested. "There is enough pornography in the world that this has to be an entire genre!"  
  
"Clothed exhibitionism?" Chaz bit his lips, trying to stop laughing. "Actually, it probably is..."  
  
"No nudes on the network if they're people we work with!" Hafidha shouted down the stairs. "I don't want to reach for my shopping list and come up with Reid's bare ass!"  
  
"There are no photos of my bare ass, anywhere!" Reid called back. And then the concern settled in. "Or there shouldn't be. If there are, I don't know about them, and that would make them a great deal more concerning."  
  
"I can't imagine anyone getting a picture of you anything but fully dressed. Maybe some bare forearm to scandalise the old men down in HR, but..." Chaz shook his head.  
  
"There are some questionable photos of me in semi-appropriate beachwear, from the last holiday I actually bothered to take. Then there was a murder. Never really tried again." Reid shook his head as if trying to chase away the memory. "In my defence, we were all extremely drunk, which is a thing that I get sometimes, most often when my co-workers are buying the drinks. I should stop letting them, but it's much too entertaining letting them bet on how long I'll stay coherent -- especially since I haven't gotten incoherent, yet. And, _somehow_ , they'll still put money on it, and I win that every time."  
  
"You'd think the BAU would be better at statistics." Chaz shook his head.  
  
Another shout echoed down from upstairs. "Ringo, what the _fuck_!"  
  
"Sorry!" Langly paused, face frozen in contemplation, as he realised how he must have crossed her connection. "Hey, if you're reading the Ruby Mirror, what do you think of that Bollinger guy?"  
  
Seconds passed, and then the sound of feet on the stairs. "Bollinger? Better photographer than a writer. Why?" Hafidha set her laptop on the corner of the coffee table and dragged over a chair.  
  
"Nothing relevant, really." Langly shook his head and shrugged. "We just ran into him, last night, in the park."  
  
"Master of understatement." Reid pinched Langly's thigh. "We caught him taking the kind of photos you'd expect from a private investigator, not a gossip columnist. Especially since they were photos of _us_ , and not some celebrity or even a politician."  
  
"I've been dismantling his life, in the background," Langly admitted, looking up at Hafidha. "Sorry I bumped into you like that, but we were both going the same way, and it's the path of least resistance."  
  
"You think he's working for someone else. Is that Helmsman biting back, or do the two of you have other people you've pissed off enough for that?" Hafidha asked, picking through Langly's data.  
  
"I've learned never to underestimate the ingenuity or hazardousness of people in prison, particularly when they have unusual skillsets that require only the most commonly smuggled prison contraband." Reid dug his beer out of the couch and finished it.  
  
"She's not us. She's gonna need something better than a cel phone," Langly argued, gesturing at Hafidha, and then looking back to explain. "I'm sure you pulled the file as soon as you found out who we were. One of Vanity's acolytes came after me, because I supposedly boned her boyfriend twenty years ago, give or take. But, since she's one of the acolytes, you know what we're dealing with."  
  
"You know Vanity works for us, now. I only wish we'd gotten the acolytes, too." Hafidha shook her head. "On the other hand, it's a good thing we didn't hire that kind of crazy."  
  
"Duke's bad enough." Chaz rolled his eyes.  
  
"Brady," Hafidha shot back, and Chaz looked away, lips tight.  
  
"I blame Reyes for that, not Brady." Chaz snorted in amusement and looked back at Hafidha. "Reyes."  
  
"Dad's great and all, but we don't need another one." Hafidha rolled her eyes so hard she nearly lost a contact. "But, crazy and on Vanity's level, we definitely don't need that."  
  
"Narcisse is still being held for trial -- her lawyers are trying everything possible to make her look like something other than a jealousy killer." Reid took a deep breath. "The DNA is holding up, so far."  
  
"Whose DNA is even in question?" Chaz recoiled in surprise. "She broke into your apartment with a gun and fired shots that nearly hit the _neighbours_. She was captured at the scene, _with the gun_. I'm curious how this involves anyone's DNA."  
  
Reid's eyebrows went up even as his eyes closed. "Ours. Collected from the furniture, where we... left it, earlier."  
  
"Still not seeing what that's got to do with the case."  
  
"He doesn't exist any more." Reid tipped his head in Langly's direction. "It would be incredibly inconvenient if too many more people made the right connections. And the Bureau ran the samples before the defence could request it -- the predictable twist on the situation being that she'd say we assaulted her, not because that would be borne out by the evidence, but because it would force the tests on the samples. With the accusations regarding his identity -- ones she fully expected to pan out -- saying I'd gone over would be easy. Here I am secretly keeping company with a guy who was buried as a hero, fifteen years ago! And then it turns into a spectacle about the conspiracy, my role in it, my record as an agent, and my future with the Bureau. She doesn't necessarily get out, but she takes us down with her. It's already beginning, and I've been fielding what of that gets past the lawyers, but Frank's as real as it gets."  
  
"I exist, and if it comes to it, I can provide a fairly solid history. I have employment records from places nobody's been working long enough to remember the years in question. Recently, I've been working as the Chief Technical Officer of an international construction firm. The identity is solid. I just happen to look like a guy who died around the turn of the century."  
  
"Jesus, Ringo, this is how you get killed for real." Hafidha shook her head.  
  
"Why are you dead, anyway?" Chaz asked. "I've read the file, and I don't get it, but that's because the file is working under the assumption that you're dead, so it probably left a bunch of shit out in the middle."  
  
"We pissed off some very serious people in some very serious ways, and about the only thing that was going to keep us alive was being dead. I'm pretty sure we just got those files back, in Florida. If those didn't get pulled out before Susanne got to them. I expect we got sanitised, but I haven't stopped to check. We've been a little busy." Langly stretched his leg and cracked an ankle. "But, we weren't planning it. We didn't go in expecting to fake our deaths. We almost died in there, and when we were found alive, I swear I expected to be killed by the cleanup team. Or to die choking on my own vomit. Either way. But, there's a few people out there who think we're worth a lot more alive than dead, and even _they_ don't know where we are. I'm pretty sure we're _way_ out of bounds, by now."  
  
"He's got a bunch of feds hiding him from a bunch of other feds," Reid clarified, without clearing anything up at all. "And now he's got new feds!"  
  
"Now I've got _hot_ feds," Langly purred, winding a finger in Reid's hair.  
  
"Top ten things I do not need to know, a list by Agent Hafidha Gates: Number one, anything about the naked happy fun times the three of you are having."  
  
"Hey, if you ever change your mind, you know where to find me." Langly shrugged.  
  
"And you think Garcia's too scary to be sexy, but Hafidha's all right?" Reid teased.  
  
"Hey, Penny's made some very serious threats against parts of my body I don't want bent, spindled, or mutilated! Just be glad I take those very serious threats very seriously!"  
  
"What did you _do_?" Chaz leaned forward to look past Reid.  
  
"I'm dating her sweet, innocent, little nerdlet." Langly rolled his eyes.  
  
"I'll give her 'sweet'," Reid muttered. "But, she can stuff the rest of it."  
  
Chaz pried his phone out of Reid's hand and replaced it with another beer. "Yeah, I think she might get over 'innocent' if she saw ... pretty much any of these."  
  
"I showed up in her office wearing nothing but a bedsheet and a few hickeys. If she's not over it yet, I don't know what it's going to take."  
  
"How early does a man have to get to work to see _that_? I'm sorry I missed it."  
  
"Getting shot at while naked tends to have some ... interesting effects on one's wardrobe, in the aftermath."  
  
"And, of course, the security videos conveniently disappeared." Langly shrugged elaborately, suggesting he'd had something to do with it.  
  
"The interviews are still there, but I don't know who has what clearance." Reid glanced at Hafidha. "Or that you'd need it."  
  
"I don't want to see--" Hafidha protested, and then caught Chaz's pleading look, complete with fluttering eyelashes. She shot him an exasperated look and pointed at Langly. "No way. Get it from him."  
  
"Thank you. I think enough people who aren't sleeping with me have seen that footage." Reid attempted to open the beer he'd been handed, only to realise he couldn't reach any of his pockets, with Langly's legs in his lap, and it wasn't a twist-off.  
  
"Did you three really sit down without an opener?" Hafidha asked, watching Reid struggle.  
  
"I have a--" Chaz followed her eyes. "Oh, sorry." He tossed his phone to Hafidha and opened the bottle in Reid's hand.  
  
Hafidha stared distractedly at the phone, without turning on the screen. "Seriously? I think my teeth are going to rot out. These are Bollinger's?"  
  
"Yeah, you see why we're a little concerned about where he's going with that." Langly flipped through some more things only he and Hafidha could see.  
  
"You're expecting him to write something pearl-clutching and shocking." Hafidha shook her head. "Oh, no, gay fed on a date with a contract technical consultant. Hopelessly romantic starry eyed gazes and a few loving kisses."  
  
"Still not gay," Reid protested.  
  
"You are to the media. Nobody's bisexual to the press, unless they're _eeeevil_." Hafidha tipped her head contemplatively. "Of course, if you're right about the motivation, maybe he'll get it right."  
  
"Nobody's getting anything right. Bollinger doesn't have the photos. I do." Langly looked at Hafidha between a pair of emails.  
  
"Oh, this one's adorable! Chazzie, you didn't tell me he could be cute, too!"  
  
"You have eyes." Chaz snorted. "My evil twin is always cute. It's part of what makes him so dangerous."  
  
"I work on that." Reid nodded.  
  
"Wrong boyfriend." Hafidha pointed at Langly, who suddenly sat bolt upright.  
  
"Wait, what? Which one? That better not be--"  
  
"The one with the scarf and that dopey little smile. I just want to pinch your cheeks." Hafidha flicked it to the laptop and spun it around, popping the filter off the screen.  
  
"I don't think I'd gotten to _that_ one yet." Reid leaned over and kissed Langly's cheek. "Got a little hung up on the, ah... other one."  
  
"The one where I'd have been begging for your--" Langly's eyes darted to Hafidha, and he cleared his throat. "The one right before I caught Bollinger uploading the photos?"  
  
"That one. I still like that one."  
  
"This one really is cute, though." Chaz tipped the laptop back with his foot, to kill the glare. "Warm and awkward, the way you're both smiling and not quite looking at each other. I just want to reach out and smoosh your faces together."  
  
"That's the next one," Hafidha told him, flicking it at the screen.  
  
Reid saw it first, and Chaz took a sudden, sharp breath at the ache that slammed through them both. The agony of love, as Reid knew it, that stomach-dropping, rib-crushing combination of desire and old, dark fear. He felt Reid's fingers find Langly's hand, and knew he'd been allowed that, and the ragged-edged comfort Reid took from the contact.  
  
"Gentlemen, as I recall, there is a birthday that I have not yet had a chance to celebrate, and after such a specific request for a gift..." Chaz changed the subject, trying to pull Reid back. Bollinger had really obviously scared the shit out of him in ways he hadn't even spotted, yet, and now the insistent cheer was finally starting to crack.  
  
"I don't want to see it. I don't want to hear it." Hafidha pointed at Chaz. "Don't pull that innocent look on me!"  
  
"I promise to keep anything you don't want to see behind closed doors, and earplugs are in the bin in the hall." Chaz looked all too smug, absolutely sure he'd thought of everything. It was Langly's birthday, after all, and he'd warned Hafs in advance.  
  
"One of these days, I'm going to bring home something pretty and stupid, and you're going to find out exactly how much earplugs don't help."  
  
Langly dug his heels into the arm of the couch so he could lift himself enough to slide his wallet out of his pocket. He pulled out an unprinted chip card and stared at it for a moment, before sliding it between two of his fingers and offering it to Hafidha. "One three three seven."  
  
She laughed. "You would."  
  
"Of course I would. It's supposed to be something you'll remember." Langly grinned. "Take it. It's a few hours out of the house. Hell, get a room and spend it on room service, and then you won't have to hear us at all."  
  
"Okay, but... why am I going to a hotel, instead of you?"  
  
Langly pointed at Reid. "He gets weird in hotels."  
  
"Hey, if you'd ever seen a hotel room under alternate lighting, you'd be weird about hotels too." Chaz shook his head and grimaced.  
  
"Says the man who has sex in nightclub bathrooms that probably haven't been washed since the nineties," Hafidha scoffed.  
  
"Yeah, but I'm not laying down in them, and I'm not naked." Chaz shrugged. "There's a line, and mine's in a slightly different place, but there's definitely a line there."  
  
"Fine. I'm spending it all on French food and Pay-Per-View porn," Hafidha decided, pulling the card away from Langly and holding her thumb against the chip. She paused. "Are you fucking _serious_?"  
  
"See?" Reid pointed at Hafidha. "That's the face I always make, when he does this!"  
  
"I can make it back before breakfast." Langly shrugged. "I spent more time and money redirecting two tons of French cheese to a soup kitchen, this morning, because the guy who runs that company is a dick, and who doesn't like anonymous donations of free cheese? He pisses me off again, and I'm putting his name on it."  
  
Hafidha looked intrigued, and then contemplative.  
  
"Oh, shit, there's two of them." Chaz put his face in his hands and groaned.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY NEW YEAR! A short chapter, but it's _all porn!_

Hours later, Langly lay stripped bare and stretched diagonally across Chaz's bed, his legs wrapped around Chaz's waist, one hand clutching at the sheet and the other clutching at Reid, who had found a way to touch him just enough to drive him mad. Every breath came out of him half shouted, and his own fluids had long since run up his chest and into his hair. He tried not to think about that, and really, it was pretty easy to ignore, with the way Chaz gripped his hips, thumbs sharp bone on bone, pounding him raw.  
  
Every part of Langly's body ached. He'd never been fucked so hard or so long in his life, and he was going to regret this, in the morning. He was going to regret this the instant Chaz pulled out, again, and he got hit with the certainty that if he sat up, all of his internal organs would slide out his ass. He'd say it was what he got for taking such a big dick, but the last time he'd said it, Chaz had bounced a tape measure off his forehead and stood there patiently while Langly measured again and again. Average. Maybe a little on the wider side of average, but not even slightly 'large'. But, Langly figured he'd never stop saying Chaz had a big dick, just maybe stop blaming the ache in his ass on it.  
  
The fire under his skin was something else entirely. Every gentle touch of Reid's fingers against his skin felt coarse and hot, like his skin was trying to permanently imprint every cell's sensation as an equally important and exquisitely intense memory. Hairs too small to see bent back and rang like cathedral bells through his bones. His lips burned when he licked them, as if his tongue were scraping them raw, but he could feel the spark of desire like a raging bonfire in his chest, so he dragged Reid down to kiss him more, to overload the screaming nerves. Too much and never enough -- it wasn't that the pain part felt good at all, it was just that the layer under it was so sweet and all-consuming, and god it felt so good just to be touched, and he'd never really figured out why it hurt, and hurt wasn't even the word, but he didn't fucking care as long as it didn't stop. As long as Reid's sweet and gentle fingers never left his skin.  
  
And as gentle as Reid was, Chaz was just hungry. Early on, Langly had mouthed off, made demands, pushed and pushed, until, by the third or fourth time he'd been traded back, the lust between them turned savage. He'd spent probably twenty minutes that felt like forever on his knees, bent back against Chaz's chest with those long fingers wrapped in his hair, pulling his head back. One side of his neck was now lightly bruised, he was pretty sure, from just under his ear almost to his shoulder. Reid's hands had been on his thighs, then, teasing and kneading, and the memory of ... maybe an hour ago tightened his muscles again, and he clenched hard around where Chaz was once again buried inside him.  
  
Sweat-soaked and shuddering, Chaz arched, his hands tight on Langly's hips as a tiny sound echoed behind his pressed-thin lips. The control he'd been clinging desperately to the tattered edges of slipped just a little further, and Reid writhed with the sensations they shared.  
  
"Please, Langly, please," Reid panted against Langly's ear, knowing, but not caring, that what he felt had nothing to do with his own body. "Please let me-- Oh, I'm so close-- I'm so-- I want-- Oh, my love, I want to be inside you. I want to feel you just like this." He tried to twist back just a little from the tempting pressure of Chaz's lust, just enough to hold onto himself a little longer, in case Langly wasn't through with them, yet.  
  
Langly shivered and twisted, arched and writhed, chasing just that little bit more, just one more. Everything hurt just enough that he couldn't quite push past it, a sound of confusion slipping past his lips as Reid pulled away, ever so slightly -- just far enough not to be touching. And before Langly could get his brain around the question of what the fuck Reid was doing, the touch of tongue against his nipple answered that question.  
  
The neighbours were going to hate him, Chaz thought, as Langly screamed his way through another orgasm, cock throbbing weakly at the top of a half-dried river of come that looked like it had poured over one of his shoulders at some point. That was going to be gross. But, he was curious about the way Reid had backed up a few inches, before tipping Langly over that edge. There was something he was missing, here, and maybe he'd even remember to ask, at some point, but right now Reid was extremely distracting and distracted, having not quite followed either of them over.  
  
One step at a time, if he could figure out which order they went in. Langly, first. Langly who stretched, panting and whimpering, between his hips and the bed.  
  
"The two of you are going to be the death of me," Chaz breathed, still trying to find all the parts of his brain. "I'm gonna be the first one to tap out. I can't keep up, and I'm... not sure why..."  
  
"Me," Reid reminded him. "You're doing too many things at once."  
  
That was the obvious answer, Chaz realised, tapping Langly's hip to get his attention, before slowly pulling out and lowering Langly's hips to the bed. He nodded as he disposed of the condom, and then stretched out along Langly's other side just in time for the sobbing to start.  
  
"God, everything hurts," Langly muttered, between wracking sobs, as he wrapped himself around Reid.  
  
"Why didn't you stop sooner?" Chaz asked, knowing damned well that was a question he should ask himself more often.  
  
"Because I didn't want to." Langly managed to shoot Chaz an exasperated look, over the shoulder Chaz was untucking his hair from.  
  
And that was the answer Chaz should have expected. He knew that. He did that, he thought, shoving a pillow between his chest and Langly's back, as he curled in close, tossing a leg over both Langly and Reid. "That's it. That's your passive power, and you haven't been eating to sustain it because you weren't getting laid most of your life. More orgasms in a row than any living being needs."  
  
Reid couldn't suppress a nearly-hysterical cackle, but it suddenly cut off in a stuttered gasp as Langly shoved a knee between his thighs.  
  
"Oh, yeah, that's me," Langly scoffed, wiping his eyes and then his nose on the back of his hand and then wiping his hand on Chaz's leg. "Danger nerd by day, Energizer fuckbunny by night."  
  
"You kind of are." Reid cleared his throat and wound his leg around Langly's.  
  
"Says the guy who still has a boner." Langly rolled his eyes.  
  
Chaz looked up from where he was trying to wipe the snot off his leg with a corner of the sheet. "Wait, _what_?"  
  
"Do you have any idea how hard it was not to go with you, that last time?" Reid leaned until he could see Chaz over Langly's head. "I just wanted to make sure one of us would still be useful, if Langly wasn't done yet."  
  
"I might be done, but I could go a little more." Langly pulled Reid closer, nipping under his chin. "Still close?"  
  
"Close enough."  
  
A wicked smile tugged at the corners of Chaz's mouth. "Want some help with that?"  
  
"Both of you? Are you sure I'll survive both of you, right now?" Reid laughed nervously, rocking his hips against Langly's thigh.  
  
"Wanna find out?" Langly flexed his thigh, grinning against Reid's neck.  
  
"I've experienced worse ways to die." Reid bit his lip contemplatively, and Langly flicked a thumb across his nipple. "Yes! ... Let's go with yes. Yes, please, oh god, right now. Yes? Yes."  
  
And then the floodgates opened, and he didn't even try to step aside from the rush of Chaz's memories of the evening. All the best parts all over again, all at once. Everywhere he turned, another memory... and some of those were his own... It was like that scene in Labyrinth and that was a horribly uncomfortable thought that he swept aside at once, burying it under the incredible softness of Langly's skin against his own, a sticky kiss when Langly's mouth was dry from screaming, tight, hot, wet, hard-- Oh, god, Langly shoved so deep inside him! He clung to that one, dragged it to the fore, offered it to Chaz, and what Chaz handed back had no Langly in it at all, but just the two of them, one of those nights they'd woken each other up. And he stared up into his own eyes as he came, thinking that was really a terrible look on him, and wondering why Chaz liked it so much.  
  
Chaz caught the moment when Reid almost screamed his own name, which, if he was entirely honest with himself, was kind of what he'd been aiming for. An entire conversation passed between them in a glance, and none of that was Chaz apologising in any way.  
  
Langly reached down to wipe his leg, as Reid throbbed against it. "I should've just sucked you off. Not even a drop."  
  
Reid groaned and leaned away, sprawling flat across the bed. "Tomorrow. Maybe next week. Five minutes. Just... nobody touch me for the next five minutes."  
  
"I think we broke him," Chaz murmured, behind Langly's ear.  
  
"Weren't we supposed to break _me_?" Langly huffed, turning his head to look over his shoulder and realising that even that hurt. "Oh, right. Did that first."  
  
Chaz took stock of the situation: all three of them were going to be a disaster, in the morning. And he and Reid had to go to work. _That_ was going to be fun. And then he realised he hadn't taken the comforter off the bed, before they started. And that was probably soaked through, because Langly. That was, he'd noticed, kind of inevitable with Langly. It wasn't a wet spot, it was a small ocean. And tonight, it was going to be all over the bed.  
  
And that, he decided, was the best possible argument for showering in the morning, because he sure as hell wasn't changing the sheets, now, and there wasn't another blanket that would fit the bed. That, he decided, would be his birthday present to himself. A spare blanket, for moments like these, because they were getting more and more common, and this was no way to live. And given the choice of getting another blanket or giving up Langly, the choice was easy, hardly a decision at all.  
  
How had he gotten this lucky, he wondered, not for the first time or even the tenth.  
  
"Hey." Reid reached out and laid his hand over Langly's on Chaz's thigh, a slow smile creeping across his face. "Happy birthday."


	10. Chapter 10

"Hey, Spence?" JJ appeared out of the fog of suffering that clouded Reid's vision and judgement, holding up a message slip.  
  
He blinked at her a few times, squinted, and cleared his throat.  
  
She studied his face. He looked like he'd been punched in both eyes -- they were ringed in that sickly yellow-tinged blue-grey. Both cheeks were a splotchy pink, one looked a little scraped, and his eyes gleamed like a drunk's in their puffy sockets. "You look like shit. You sure you should be here?"  
  
"It's not contagious," Reid promised, before anything else. "I'm fine. I just need another coffee. It was, ah... a very long night." He tugged the edge of his scarf up under his chin.  
  
"Are you... _cold_?"  
  
"I'm _tired_. After a while, it's the same difference." Reid's eyes caught on the message slip. "Pretty sure you didn't come all the way over here just to tell me I shouldn't have come in this morning."  
  
"I came over here wondering why I have a message about you threatening a reporter in the park, Saturday night, and whether I'm going to have to explain this to Prentiss."  
  
"First of all, _I_ did not threaten a reporter." Reid sat back so he could look up at JJ at a better angle than he was getting hunched over his desk. "A certain tabloid journalist was trying to photograph me while I was on a date. Unfortunately for him, something went wrong with his digital camera-- Don't look at me. I don't know how those things work. Point, push button, magic pictures." He held up his hands and shook his head. "I strongly suggested he leave me alone and contact one of the Bureau's media liaisons, if he wanted someone to interview. So, obviously, he called you."  
  
"I'm not--"  
  
"No, but your old cards are still floating around, and you have the same number. I did not direct him to you. In fact, I didn't even tell him I was BAU, but he knew I was an agent. Photos from Fitzgerald."  
  
"So, what am I walking into, here?" JJ asked, leaning against the edge of Reid's desk and parking the top of her thigh on it.  
  
"The guy's Henry Bollinger from the Ruby Mirror -- an online tabloid of some sort. It seems to specialise in celebrity gossip-style pieces on politicians and federal employees. He said he was doing a human interest story on gay agents and how the FBI has changed since Hoover. I suggested he might want to _find_ a gay agent to interview." However rough Reid looked, it did nothing to hide the catty gleam in his eyes.  
  
"Who were you out with? Garcia? Villette? No, you said you were on a date..." JJ looked confused. "This guy says he was threatened by a _pair_ of agents, but you're the only one named."  
  
"I was with _Frank_. Bollinger made the assumption and apparently didn't take the correction. He doesn't seem to be very good at that, overall."  
  
"So, you were out with Frank, and _you_ didn't threaten Bollinger -- not that I thought you did. That's not really a you thing to do. So..."  
  
"Did _Frank_?" Reid laughed. " _I'm_ scarier than Frank. I don't think Frank attempting to threaten someone _in person_ would be at all effective."  
  
"Uh-huh. You mean 'yes'."  
  
"Does it count as 'threatening' if it was completely ridiculous, impossible to execute, and mostly just a strong suggestion not to _follow us home_?" Reid shook his head. "Either way, Bollinger's been informed in no uncertain terms to stay away from us, and if he doesn't, I'm filing harassment charges. I work for the government -- if I'm in the field, I'm fair game, but my personal life is _mine_."  
  
"Seems fair." JJ nodded, slowly, and Reid waited for the rest of that thought. "But, tell Frank he can't just threaten reporters' lives like that."  
  
"Nobody's life was threatened! Maybe his computer! Maybe his camera! Possibly even his car! But, not a _word_ about his life!"  
  
Chaz should have been visible from the hall, but Reid's presently-limited attention was otherwise focused, until Chaz's voice cut through the haze. "Bollinger?"  
  
"Bollinger," Reid confirmed. "You look like hell."  
  
Chaz gave him a long look. "I wonder why."  
  
"I take it the two of you were up all night?" JJ looked a little more curious than she had when she'd thought Reid had spent the weekend with Frank.  
  
"Fitzgerald," Chaz said, shrugging. "The data doesn't go together in a way I like. Something's wrong, in there, and I can't find it."  
  
"I thought Fitzgerald was closed." JJ looked back and forth between the two slender, exhausted men before her. They really were remarkably alike, even if Villette struck her as being more worldly, more _dangerous_ , somehow. Of the two of them, Reid looked like he might flail irritably, but Villette looked like he might _bite_.  
  
"We still don't know who ordered the abductions."  
  
"There's nothing there. There's not even leading circumstantial evidence." Reid sighed in frustration. "It's Helmsman. We know it's Helmsman. We just don't know who Helmsman _is_ , because nobody working on this project is still _alive_ , except they're mostly still writing purchase orders."  
  
Chaz cleared his throat. "Want a break from Fitzgerald?"  
  
"Y--" Reid stopped before he finished the word, looking up at Chaz's too-bright smile. "Why do I suddenly have a bad feeling about this?"  
  
"Because we're going on an all-expenses-paid trip to New Hampshire, and you know nothing good ever happens in New Hampshire?" Chaz didn't stop grinning, though it looked a little more apologetic. "You were right about the snowstorms. Falkner took Lau and Tan to handle something in Georgia, which leaves me with Brady and Hafs, and Hafs has to stay here to handle tech for both teams. I need one more badge on this team, and you found the blip in the data, so..."  
  
"I win the trip to snowy, snowy New Hampshire, which shouldn't be that snowy, this early in the year."  
  
"Ding ding ding!" Chaz offered two thumbs up.

* * *

Reid called Langly from halfway to the airport, the phone tossed on the seat next to him.  
  
"Hey, sorry, got called out on a case. Looks like you'll have to entertain yourself for a few days," he teased.  
  
"Villette gave back the data the two of you were working on, and that'll keep me busy for a week. I can see the holes in the pattern, and now that I know what I'm looking for..." A long pause suggested he was cracking his knuckles. "I'm gonna find it."  
  
"We're probably going to be up in New Hampshire for a while. It's... It's an ACTF case, not one of mine. So, just... think warm, happy thoughts, and I'll be back as soon as possible." Reid sighed and tried not to rub his eyes while driving. "Do you think you've got enough to give Prentiss somewhere to start tearing things down?"  
  
"Oh, yeah. I'm just going to patch up a couple more holes, and then I'll see what she wants to do with it. We've gotten to where if the facility we're watching shuts down, Penny and I can follow the scatter, and hopefully someone will phone home and give us a way in deeper. All we've got to do is get some kind of connection between this layer and the next one in. If we can just keep following it inward, we can get them."  
  
"Have fun and don't get arrested." Reid laughed quietly. "And JJ says to stop threatening reporters."  
  
"Bollinger can suck a dick! Not mine!" Langly snapped. "Stop threatening reporters? Yeah, let's see how she takes it, when one ... sneaks up on her in a park! This is bullshit. And how the hell does she know?"  
  
"Bollinger called her to complain about us."  
  
"To complain. About us. He's the one sneaking around taking pictures of--"  
  
"Frank."  
  
"--people just trying to have--"  
  
" _Frank_."  
  
"--time in a --"  
  
" _Langly!_ "  
  
" _What?_ "  
  
"Can you honestly tell me that wouldn't have been Whiskey, fifteen years ago?"  
  
" _Yes?_ Yes, I honestly can, thank you." Langly huffed and sputtered. "We weren't taking pictures of _people on dates_! Just people doing things they shouldn't have been! And the occasional public event or Elvis impersonator. Sometimes we got lucky and there were cryptids." He paused. "I guess there's always cryptids, now."  
  
"Yeah, but you can't really write about that."  
  
"And it _sucks_. This is the best story, and I have to _sit on it_."  
  
"I'm a little surprised you're sitting at all, right now."  
  
"Ha ha. I'm not. I'm lying on the sofa with my laptop and a huge plate of chocolate chip pancakes, so people will remember I actually _live here_."  
  
"I don't see how anyone could for--" Reid's entire attention returned to the road as the car in the next lane pulled in front of him and braked hard. Perhaps he didn't drive like Chaz, but he was still just quick enough to avoid actually making contact with the car in front of him. " _No!_ We are not doing this. I am _going_. To _New Hampshire_."  
  
"Reid? You all right?"  
  
"Let me get off the side of the..." Reid merged back into traffic from where he'd swung out onto the shoulder not to hit the idiot, reaching out to bat his phone back onto the seat from where it had slid forward when he slammed on the brakes. "Yeah, I'm fine, and I'm really pretty intent on staying that way, right now. I'm probably going to be a little distracted, but I'm not hanging up, in case something goes wrong."  
  
"Ow, _shit_!" There was a creak from the sofa, and Reid assumed Langly had stopped lying down. "What's going on?"  
  
"Run something for me?" Reid asked, rattling off the make and model of the car and most of the license plate. It was amazing what the mind focused on in dangerous situations. "Someone just tried to swoop and squat me, and I'm trying to figure out if that's just a scammer stupid enough to try that _on the highway_ or if I have a more serious problem. And until we figure that out, I'm just going to work under the assumption that my car is going to be bugged, by the time I get back from New Hampshire."  
  
"That's a safe assumption. You check it recently?"  
  
"No, but I haven't been going anywhere interesting. Your apartment, my apartment, work, Chaz's place... I'm pretty boring." The point was that he hadn't driven Langly properly home, since the last time the car had been checked -- just to the drop point where Frank supposedly lived.  
  
"I'm wondering, if this is about you, how they picked you up headed to the airport. And why... Most of the time, it's staying in the pattern that provides an opportunity for that kind of thing, but you do something weird, and suddenly this? I'd like to think it's just an insurance scam, but..." Langly paused, an inquisitive sound interrupting the sentence. "Huh. Not in a stolen car it isn't."  
  
"Let somebody know I found it, please? I can't do it without hanging up, but I think you can." Reid ran down the list of possibilities. "Tell Garcia what's going on, and let her know I still intend to handle the New Hampshire case, or I'd do this myself. It's probably a good thing I'm getting out of town for a bit. Stay away from my place, while I'm gone, just in case?"  
  
"Normally, I'd say you want me there, just to keep it occupied, but I'm pretty cool with not getting shot at in your living room, again." Langly chuckled nervously. "But, you're not going home without me. And Villette. Tell him he's going home with you, when you get back. Whatever might be waiting isn't going to expect _him_."  
  
"If anything ever expects him, I'll have serious concerns," Reid muttered.  
  
"And, maybe let me pick you up from the airport, when you get back. I'll rent a car, at the last minute, so nobody catches it before I'm in it."  
  
"What about _my_ car, then?"  
  
"I can tell Penny to have it picked up, but I'm not sure if it's more safe or less safe to have the fibbies hold it for you, with Helmsman still up in the air. Penny and Hafs can do almost as good a job as I can, making sure it's not bugged, though. My kung fu is still the best."  
  
Reid took a deep breath. "Do it. And if this is about Helmsman, you probably want to pick up Chaz's car, too."  
  
" _You_ handle whatever's waiting in New Hampshire. _We'll_ take care of this." Langly paused, the weight of another sentence filling the space, until he finally came out with it. "Keep your fed phone on you. I'm keeping an eye on the GPS, just in case."  
  
"I'm flying into what might become a blizzard. Don't panic if I disappear -- check the weather first."  
  
Langly's breath hissed through his teeth and then he sighed. "All right, all right."  
  
"Hey." A tiny smile tugged at the corners of Reid's mouth. "I don't know if I've said it lately, but I should say it now. I love you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'The New Hampshire case' is partially covered in one of the kmeme fills, [A Midwinter Night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16715864/).


	11. Chapter 11

"Okay, what the hell are we doing here?" Brady demanded, sliding a container of greasy takeout out from under the pile in front of Chaz. "Small words. Simple concepts. It doesn't usually snow here in October, so you think it's a gamma?"  
  
Reid sat on one of the motel beds -- the town was barely more than a truckstop, but it was the closest thing with rooms to the affected area -- picking at a bad imitation of poutine in a styrofoam container. "It's not just the snow, but the snow is what got my attention. It's the snow and the six freezing deaths of men between thirty-five and fifty in places that had heat, when they were found."  
  
"It's got that WTF feel," Duke agreed around a mouthful of cheeseburger.  
  
"Six deaths? Isn't that like half the population of one of these towns?" Brady eyed the map Chaz had pulled together on the plane.  
  
"Most of these towns don't have their own police," Reid pointed out, "because they're so small. And one or two 'stupid tourist deaths', as they're often called, because of the cold isn't going to raise too many eyebrows in any one of them. But, they're all the in same county, and the coroner noticed something was wrong, so when I called and asked about unusual deaths, these were the first thing she thought of."  
  
Chaz hit the bottom of the first container, swabbing the last of the steak sauce out of it with the end of a french fry, before he stuck it on the bottom of the pile and moved on to the next. "None of these guys are locals. Every one of them's a tourist. Like, specifically a tourist -- not just someone passing through on the way to somewhere else or visiting family -- they're here for the early ski season. And they're exactly the kind of tourists I want to kick off tall things, every time I go back to Vegas, if you look at the reports from when the bodies were recovered."  
  
Reid choked back a laugh, pressing the side of his hand against his mouth and nearly dripping gravy on himself from the fry he still held. He should've checked the bag for plastic forks. He should really have started carrying his own camping cutlery, again. But he was stuck with greasy fingers and a clear vision of exactly the kind of tourist Chaz was talking about. "They're everywhere. And they're worse when they're drunk. At least they're probably less drunk, here."  
  
Chaz elbowed his laptop, licked his fingers, and hit a few keys, calling up one of the reports. "I quote: 'It's a damn shame he's dead, because that's not something you wish on anybody, but I can't say I'm sorry about it. He walked up here like he owned the place and started hitting on everything with tits. By the second day, none of the girls would serve him. I had to come in on my day off, because we can't afford to lose the money.' That's from the guy who owns the diner." He tapped on the box he was eating out of. "Real winners, these guys."  
  
"Note to self: don't hit on the waitress." Duke chuckled. Then: "... Maybe I _should_ hit on a waitress. Just to see if it draws the attention of our gamma."  
  
"Maybe you shouldn't hit on a waitress, because that poor waitress," Chaz teased. "Also, probably not the impression of the FBI we want to leave."  
  
Duke cocked his head at Chaz. "Says the guy who got hit on by the waitress."  
  
"Says the guy who turned down the waitress, because let's not cause more problems while we're here."  
  
"When, exactly, did you grow a pair? What ever happened to 'Oh my god, she looked at me, now what am I supposed to do!?'"  
  
"Worth," Brady said, quietly, and Duke went back to his cheeseburger without another word.  
  
Reid cleared his throat. "So, start tomorrow with the locals? See if there's anywhere all six of these men overlap?"

* * *

Reid and Villette had been gone for three days, and Langly was staring down the sudden gap in his life, the empty space where his pet feds belonged. He actually missed them, and that was weird. He didn't miss people. Not really. Of course, the only people he could miss he pretty much hadn't been separated from for thirty years, so... But, it was strangely quiet around him, and while that was something he usually liked, he'd gotten used to the pair of them arguing about patterns in the data, while he dug up more pieces to give them. Even with Penny showing up to ... whatever she was getting up to with Byers in the back -- he didn't ask, didn't want to know -- there was this dead space around him, practically anechoic, and he turned the music up louder to compensate.

But, still, there was that nagging concern -- first Bollinger and then the car on the way to the airport... He took a deep breath and went down the list again. Nothing bad had happened in Florida. Nothing bad had happened _since_ Florida. Nothing bad was going to happen in New Hampshire. He just kept telling himself that, as he hammered at the matrix Chaz had built with the data he'd dug up. Now he just had to find those last few pieces and fit them into the obvious holes. Some of them had filled in neatly, but the last few were strange junctures, and he wasn't sure the proof that went in those spots existed. If he could even find something suggestive, though, he'd plug it in and see what opened up. They were almost there. They could almost prove the entire history of the project up until Overlord's death, and quite a bit of it afterward, though the people involved got a little fuzzy past that point. Death dates had been entered for all the original members they'd been able to identify. Everyone was dead, but someone kept things going in their names.  
  
But, it was like that story about the apartments in ... where the hell even was that, Springfield? When you tear down the building, the roaches scatter. Even the ones you didn't know you had. And for once, they had the power to make that happen, and in a way that probably wasn't going to end up with a test flight crashing through their roof, obliterating all trace of the people and hardware inside. And that was the kind of thing you worried about when people like Overlord were involved -- serious overkill. Overlord, himself, had made the mistake of not obliterating them years ago, maybe out of some long-held sympathy for Byers, but Helmsman wasn't going to have that same attachment. Still, this time, they were wielding the fucking FBI as a weapon, and fifteen years since their deaths stood as a fairly potent shield.  
  
Helmsman, he was fairly sure, was one of the last few obstacles to the three of them coming back into the world as actual people, instead of just the ghosts of corporate manoeuvring. There was still a pissed off defence satellite, he thought. Possibly one or more snipers working for various people they'd pissed off and who were still living. Yves was probably going to come back just to punch them in their collective spleens, speaking of pissing people off, but as far as threats from the past went, he almost looked forward to seeing her again. He'd take the punch in the spleen, tell her she looked better with a beard, and then maybe introduce her to the hot feds. Well, a hot fed, anyway. He wasn't sure Villette would be quite as resistant to her charms, and with Yves those charms were just the cover for... Nah, both hot feds. Handing her Villette would be _payback_. The look on her face when she realised he was getting some would just be the icing on that particular cake.  
  
A few more pieces, and they'd be able to start tearing down the building, and he'd be ready to tag the roaches and follow them when they scattered.

* * *

None of them heard the phone ring, but they all saw the immediate shift in Reid's face as he pulled it out of his pocket and answered it -- subtle, barely a motion at all, but the blinding joy that radiated from that quirk of the lips, that tiny twitch of the eyebrow, was unmistakeable, in a room full of profilers.  
  
"Hey, gorgeous," Reid sounded pleased and surprised as he stood up and gestured to excuse himself from the conversation at the table. "Tell me something good."  
  
Brady raised his eyebrows at Chaz, as Reid grabbed a coat and let himself out, to finish the conversation without an audience.  
  
"Every night, before he goes to sleep." Chaz shrugged, pretending he wasn't still privy to certain parts of the conversation going on outside. Not all of it, but the parts Reid was willing to share. The parts he'd have talked to Langly about, himself, if he and Reid had been alone. "I almost envy it. They're good, together -- not at all what you'd expect, but it works."  
  
"You've been spending a lot of time with those two, lately," Duke pointed out.  
  
"It's a very small task force, for a very weird investigation, and right now we're still at the all brains on deck stage. I'll let you know when we get to the kicking down doors and pointing guns at people part." Chaz grinned. It looked terrible on him. "You can take notes for your next book."  
  
"Does he actually think the scarf is helping?" Brady asked, looking over his shoulder at the door.  
  
"Notice you haven't asked _him_ that question." Chaz raised his eyebrows. "It's working just fine."  
  
Duke laughed and shook his head. "Man's got a point. It depends on your definition of 'working'."  
  
"Just like you coming with us depends on the working definition of 'civilian'?" Brady turned his chair and tipped it back, leaning it against the wall, still looking at the door. "Speaking of definitions, the boyfriend's really a hacker? I mean, I've heard some things in the hall. Some rumour that he's dating some greasy-haired, hatchet-faced hacker who's about Todd's age."  
  
"He is _not_ my age. I've got a couple-ten years on him, at least." Duke shook his head. "I met him on Fitzgerald. Good guy, balls of steel. The girl drops a tactical team, and he just goes 'I know what this is,' and heads in. He's wrong, of course -- she's a gamma in the middle of converting -- but, no gun, no vest, and he holds her off with nothing but willpower. Greasy hacker, maybe, but he's got something going on. Hot shit in a dress, too."  
  
"Greasy hacker, hot shit in a dress." Brady looked back and forth between Chaz and Duke. "Am I missing something?"  
  
"He cleans up well." Chaz shrugged, leaving his shoulders up around his ears for a bit. "I was a little surprised how well that worked."  
  
"You were just glad _you_ didn't end up in the dress," Duke teased.  
  
Brady cracked up, taking another look at Chaz every few seconds and then laughing harder. "Don't take this the wrong way, but frog to frog princess is not going to help you get a date."  
  
"Who is the waitress hitting on? Me. Every night for the whole week. I have a lot less of a problem getting dates than you think."  
  
"Is someone less single than anticipated?" Duke eyed Chaz across the pile of Halloween candy wrappers on the table.  
  
Brady leaned forward again, chair thumping against the cheap carpet. "Oh? Who's the girl, and why haven't we met her, yet?"  
  
Chaz shook his head and tugged up the collar of his turtleneck -- not that there was a mark on him, but a chill ran down his spine. "There's no girl -- not like _that_. And you know when you'd meet her, if there was -- it's not that time of year. But, sorry to disappoint, I'm still just as single as I was last year, and the year before that."  
  
"Single gamma rapidly approaching forty," Duke teased. "We gotta worry about you, kid?"  
  
"Oh, yeah, perfect serial killer material, here. And I could get away with it, too, and you know it." Chaz yawned and stretched, shoulders making the kind of sounds they only did in the dead of winter. "But, I'd have to be pissed off about being single or having a dead-end job. I think I actually like it better this way. Lower expectations, nobody at home worrying besides whoever's working the desk. I'm single. There's no one to disappoint."  
  
Brady shuddered at the sound. All these years later, and he still flashed back on those scars, every time he heard Chaz's shoulders grind like that. It was not a subtle sound.  
  
Chaz opened his mouth to say something rude to Brady, but the door opened and Reid returned, almost apologetically cheerful and glowing with some inner warmth that contrasted with the frost-slapped colour of his nose and cheeks.  
  
"Ah, young love," Duke observed, fondly, and Reid's smile slipped.  
  
"Fitzgerald," he offered. "Frank's turning over what we've got so far to Prentiss. She says they're going after the facility we extracted Ms Fitzgerald from, I quote, 'in a couple of days'."  
  
"Are we going to be there for it?" Chaz asked, already counting calories. He hadn't been paying quite as much attention to the conversation as he should have been, he realised.  
  
"I don't know. We're pretty close to wrapping this up, but... When they get the authorisation and the tactical team, they're going to move immediately -- they'll have to, and you know that." Reid shook his head. "If we're back, they'll probably want you. Me, less so."  
  
"Nope." Chaz leaned back and crossed his arms firmly. "I can't go in -- not on a raid like that. Somebody's going to have to explain me, if I do."  
  
"Ah, the eternal problem. We have the power, but we can't use it where anyone can see it." Duke sighed, running a hand over what used to be his hair.  
  
"So, neither of us, most likely. They're probably going to take Hafidha, _maybe_ Frank, but I don't know if they can justify the consultant in the field. Nobody really gets what they do, but they get the job done. There's a lot less to explain, and somebody needs to get the team through the front door, because I doubt security's going to open up for that." Reid took his seat, again. "So, tomorrow..."  
  
"Tomorrow we go up the mountain. The call's probably real, but nobody's getting up that mountain until daylight. Not with the roads like this." Brady realised the heap of chocolate minis on the table had been stripped of everything but the Snickers bars. Still no peanuts. He casually reached out and slid two toward himself, pretending he was actually trying to steal food from the gamma.  
  
Chaz slapped Brady's hand, pinning it to the table, and pried one and then the other mini Snickers out from under it, tossing them to Reid. "Hey, genius needs those to run his brain."  
  
Duke and Brady both eyed Reid suspiciously.  
  
"No." Reid unwrapped one of the minis and gestured at the two of them with it. "I am the most normal person in this room."  
  
Chaz made an uncertain sound. "No, you're not. That's Brady. Brady's so normal the fifties could take a lesson. Nice house, married a doctor, two cars, total barbecue dad even without the kids... He's the American dream."  
  
"Who the hell needs kids, when I've got you assholes?" Brady flicked a candy wrapper at Chaz. "Anyway, no. Not running up the icy mountain in the middle of the night after a corpse. There's no chance the guy's still alive at this point-- there's almost no chance he was still alive when the wife called the sheriff, and by the time the sheriff thought to call us..." He shook his head. "We'll get the body tomorrow. I'm hoping Little Miss Snowblower is still up there with him -- and that's another reason to wait. If she's waiting for us, we're not going up at night. We will _die_."  
  
"Agreed." Chaz nodded. "She can hit me before I can even find her. I have no question that her range is better than mine -- look at the weather patterns."  
  
"So, we've got one car and two places to be. How do we want to do this?" Duke asked.  
  
"I'd think Brady can handle the sheriff and a search warrant by himself," Reid pointed out around a mouthful of peanuts and caramel.  
  
Brady nodded. "Drop me off, and then go up. I'll call you if we find anything down here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A Midwinter Night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16715864/) goes between this and the next chapter.


	12. Chapter 12

Reid was pressed back against the tile wall in the shower, praying the curtain rod would hold him if he slipped, his other hand fairly seriously tangled in Chaz's wet hair and pulling. This was what he'd wanted, last night -- these were the words he'd never say, the thing he'd never ask for, but the thing about having someone else inside your mind was not _having_ to ask. And there was some guilt attached to that, however quickly he buried it under the feeling of Chaz's lips and tongue against his skin, tiny, desperate sounds breaking against the backs of his teeth every time Chaz sucked and swallowed. He had to get over it. He had to learn to ask. He had to learn to _do it_ , if he was going to ask for it.  
  
It was the last that Chaz pushed back against, without so much as a break in his slow, rhythmic appreciation of Reid's cock. Maybe he should've been offended by the fact that Reid didn't give blowjobs, but there was no point in it, contrary to the belief of millions of men. Besides, if he were entirely honest with himself, half the reason he enjoyed this so much with Reid was that the feedback loop was incredible. He might as well have been blowing himself, which wasn't something he'd ever actually wanted to do, but given the opportunity, he wasn't going to pass it up. Did he wonder how it would be different, if they switched places? Sure, but not enough to ask -- not when he knew how incredibly averse Reid was to the idea. That he tolerated this -- that he'd come to _desire_ this -- was an unexpected pleasure for them both.  
  
And the pleasure was all-consuming. Reid had been reduced to pleading whispers, nearly inaudible above the sound of the shower, but Chaz didn't have to hear them to feel every word as if it were pressed between his tongue and Reid's cock. They were so close. They were so alive, and in that moment, that was what Chaz was still grateful for. They'd made it down the mountain, and they'd be going home tomorrow afternoon, just as soon as it was warm enough to fly. They'd be going home, and Langly would be waiting for them, hopefully a little less sore than when they'd left, because he meant to--  
  
Reid's voice was barely audible, just a low, guttural sound of frustration as he tried to stay quiet, accompanied by a creak from the wall as the curtain rod suddenly bore more of his weight than it was intended to. He could feel Chaz's mouth on him, the texture of lips and tongue amplified in waves as he spilled against the back of that tongue, pulsed against his own tongue. He could taste himself, could feel the heat of his own body against his lips, could feel the wire-tight tension of Chaz's desire buzzing across his nerves as he clenched his hand and pulled harder, Chaz's blissful moan rippling through his flesh as the second orgasm broke over them. His eyes rolled back and his legs shook in a way that said he shouldn't be standing on them, but Chaz had an iron grip on his hips, even now, holding him against the wall, as he tried to remember how to breathe.  
  
Memories of Langly rang through his bones -- soft hair and hungry kisses, that little huff of annoyance, the way he threw his glasses when they got in the way, the way he howled and screamed when he came, ragged panting breaths, that little look of wonder in the morning. And that ache, when Reid remembered how easy it would be to lose it all.  
  
Chaz pulled back and looked up at Reid's stunned face. The first attempt at words sounded like phlegm and gravel. He coughed and tried again. "We're going home, soon. He'll be there."  
  
"I know. I just..."  
  
"I know." Chaz unfolded himself from the floor of the shower and put his arms around Reid. "Come on, let's go to bed, and you can show me what you've got in mind for him."  
  
Reid laughed and pressed his face against Chaz's shoulder. "Only you."  
  
"It's what you like about me."  
  
"One of many things." Reid let himself just hold Chaz a moment. "I do appreciate you, you know. I'm... I'm always worried that doesn't come through properly. I don't know how to do this thing that we're doing, but I enjoy it, and I enjoy you, and I want to believe that's enough."  
  
"It is," Chaz promised. "I mean, I'm here because I want to get naked with your hot boyfriend, which is not a sentence I'd say to a whole lot of people. Or, you know... anyone. Ever. The fact that you and I are compatible in a way that makes _that_ a good idea, that makes _this_ a good idea... I never expected it. I don't know what to do with it either. So..." He shrugged and pulled back far enough to see Reid's face. "Let's do Langly with it, until we figure it out."  
  
Reid squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed a laugh. "I'm serious. I don't know what this is."  
  
" _I'm_ serious, _neither do I_. I mean, I'm... I'm a nice, normal, mostly-monogamous, heterosexual relationships kind of guy. 'Mostly', because I've got an 'I'm not going to ask, so please don't tell me' in there, for long-distance. This is not what I do, but I'm starting to think that's a matter of opportunity rather than preference. Where else am I ever, and I mean _ever_ , going to find someone like you?" Chaz made a disgusted face as he played that back in his head. "Not ... in some wiffly romantic way. I mean you have a set of talents I've never seen on another person, and I like being able to do the things I can do with you."  
  
"You like being able to lick your own crotch without having to fold yourself in half like a cat." Reid looked a little too amused.  
  
"I mean, _that too_!" Chaz suddenly stiffened, bending back as he pressed closer to Reid. "And we're running out of hot water."  
  
"No!" Reid ducked, twisting to lunge under Chaz's arm, knowing Chaz would move before he got there, grabbing at the taps for the shower before the water could turn icy.

* * *

Langly hadn't travelled to the site with any part of the team, preferring to keep himself distinct from the inordinate amount of FBI and associated surveillance, for as long as possible. Instead, he'd bought a second-hand rice rocket -- something that would be easy to stash almost anywhere and make him just a little less electronically visible than taking cabs everywhere, in he long run. Wasn't the first time he'd had one, by a long shot, but it was the first time in a long time, and it took a few turns around a parking lot to come back to him.  
  
But, he made it out to the facility right on time, getting there just behind the caravan he could see ahead of him on that long stretch of empty road. Tactical team, three ambulances, tech van, JJ and Rossi with the car full of psychologists... they were really doing it, this time. And he knew he was kicking Helmsman's shins. He knew this would bite back -- he hoped it would. Coming after them would reveal parts of the project they hadn't spotted. He just wished Reid and Villette had gotten back in time to see it. That and he'd actually have come in, _with them_. The rest of these fucks and his history with certain substantially less-friendly parts of the Bureau, though... he felt safer, alone.  
  
As he waited for the team to take out perimeter security, he called Reid. Didn't even need to take the phone out of his pocket, though it sometimes did weird things to his voice, when he encoded it, himself.

* * *

"Hey, let me put you on speaker. Chaz is here."  
  
Reid smiled every time Langly called, Chaz had noticed, and this time was no different. He wondered if he'd been like that, once upon a time, as he took his cup of coffee back across the room to sit by Reid and the phone.  
  
"Fitzgerald is on. Right now. I'm on site and Hafs is giving me the network for this call, so..." Langly sounded a little weird, slight distortions in the way his voice carried into the room.  
  
" _They took you into the field?_ " Reid sounded horrified.  
  
"Of course they did. They need me. I'm about to go pop some locks, so tell me when you're coming home. I can probably still make it to the airport, if nothing goes wrong out here."  
  
Reid looked like he might vomit, and Chaz handed him the ice bucket. There was no ice machine anywhere on the premises, but the room still had an ice bucket for some unfathomable reason. Barf bucket, now, Chaz thought.  
  
"We're supposed to landing around six. They've got to wait for it to get warm enough that we can get the plane off the ground without hitting ice. The airfield we landed at shouldn't be open in this weather, but the storm's broken, and there's a good chance it'll warm up enough to be safe in a few hours."  
  
"Six?" Langly scoffed. "Yeah, no worries. I'll be there. I'll call you when we're done here. Hafs'll put me through to the plane."  
  
"Please be careful." Reid bit his tongue and did not say 'I love you'. Not now. Not going into something like this.  
  
"They haven't killed me yet. Not gonna let that start now." There was an incomprehensible burst of noise, and then, "Gotta go! See you tonight!"  
  
The call disconnected, and Reid stared blankly at the phone. Chaz pushed his coffee across the table to Reid.  
  
"You need that more than I do."  
  
Reid took much too long to reach for the cup, finally taking a deep breath and a long drink.  
  
"You want to give me the part of that I'm missing?" Chaz asked, trying to follow the glimmers that darted just beneath the all-too-still surface of Reid's mind.  
  
"No. I don't. I like you, and you don't need that." Reid took another sip of coffee. "Some of it you know. Helmsman is Overlord's... let's go with 'successor'. Overlord is ... _was_... a close friend of Fitz's father. They've crossed paths before and not in a way that ended on good terms. It's how he and Fitz identified the project when they found it in Asher's files. There's a very good chance that he's out there directly in the path of someone who knows who he is and has a long-standing vendetta. This is one of those 'probably snipers' things he jokes about. Except now it's not funny, because he's not just alive and in public, he's actively involved with trying to take the project down again. _Again_ , meaning he's a serious problem, now, and not just some guy who stepped on the wrong toes, one time."  
  
He put down the coffee and leaned back in the chair, head tipped down, shoulders folded in, one hand stretched across his face, just under the eyes. "The rest? The rest is me. You don't need that."  
  
Chaz caught a flash of something, turned with it, stared at it until it resolved. Blood. So much blood. Blood on his hands, blood in his hair... not his blood -- Reid's blood -- not Reid's blood. Someone else's, and there was the crushing emptiness, the ancestor of the pain in Reid's chest... He stopped following it.  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"I told you not to."  
  
"No, you didn't. You said I didn't need it." Chaz seemed to fold in on himself. "I thought if I knew it, I could make it stop. I thought I could think of something that would help."  
  
"Now do you understand?"  
  
Chaz nodded, lips held back between his teeth.  
  
"Then I'm sorry, too."


	13. Chapter 13

"Hey, how's the hottest fed in the history of the bureau?" Langly asked, leaning against the open back door of the tech van. Behind him, Hafidha rolled her eyes and tried not to listen to the call.  
  
"Yeah, we're wrapping things up here. You in the air, yet?" Langly watched the tactical team strapping the last of the shackled facility employees into a helicopter, and not for the first time, he thanked whatever the Anomaly was that he didn't have to be able to hear to have this conversation. "I'll probably get there before you, then. I don't have to stick around for the rest of this. They're gonna be out here for days, and the faster I get out of Dodge, the better. Hafs has the badge to hide behind, and she's not... like me."  
  
Langly leaned to the side, as if he could move away from the way Reid raised his voice, but he was handling his own decryption and there was nothing between him and the noise. "It's fine. Everything's fine. Officially, we _are_ the Fitzgerald task force -- the three of us -- so I'm supposed to go get the two of you and fill you in, while the shrinks handle all the names from the basement and the half of the tech team with a badge extracts everything from the servers, before something conveniently happens to them, like it's probably going to. I pulled some interesting transmissions early on, and I'll see what I can do with them, later. You can bet your ass the roaches are scrambling now, and all we gotta do is follow them home."  
  
"... It's over, for now. I promise. Yes, it's going to jump up and bite us in the ass, later, but... later. We've got a day before anyone gets their shit together enough to try something effective. Nobody knows who we are, yet -- not by name. Just that the FBI is responsible. And I better get on the road, before they start figuring it out." A shy smile broke across Langly's face and he ducked his head. "Yeah, that's still weird, but I'll take it. Tell Villette some shit I'm not saying in present company. And start thinking of uses for a six pound bucket of whipped cream, Special Agent Sexy, because I'm picking one up. And donuts. And maybe some actual dinner -- Yeah, I will. I promise. I'll see you when you touch the ground."  
  
Langly paused before he put his helmet on, nodding to Hafidha. "Good game, been a riot. Anything you want me to tell Villette?"  
  
"Call me if he wants news sooner, but I'll see him when he gets home." She gave him a long look. "You're going to pick them up at the airport. On a motorcycle."  
  
"Of course not. I'm leaving the bike at the airport when I pick up the rental car. Switch back tomorrow. Fuck the trail around a little and it confuses even people who are looking for it." Langly grinned, pulling the helmet down. He waved at Hafidha and made for the bike.  
  
A mile down the empty road, Langly started pulling strings for the rental car. No wireless network out here, but there was a strong cel network, and he could use that. Somebody was going to hate him for jamming up the line, because the tower couldn't switch him to a lower priority -- highest priority and maximum bandwidth, but he'd only be a minute or two. He knew what he wanted -- he just had to pull the maintenance flag off it and reserve it in Frank's name.  
  
And that was when he stopped paying attention to the road. But, there shouldn't have been anything else on it. Not out here. Not at this hour. And with the road empty like it was, there was no reason for that very large, dark blue Ford to be swerving onto his side of the road. He sped up and swung out of the way, letting go of the reservation he'd just finished making and grabbing at the SUV's systems. Something in that car would be wireless, something would be bluetooth. He just had to get into it, just like he'd told Bollinger, right?  
  
But, the edge of the road didn't have a flat shoulder, and he was too distracted to catch it until the bike jumped the warning ridge and flipped him into the drainage ditch. This was going to be a problem. He grabbed at the cel network again, trying to reach back to Hafidha, but there was a sudden sharp pain in his leg, and the network got blurry. Push through it. Push--  
  
And then everything went black.

* * *

"He's not here, and he's not picking up -- the phone's kicking me straight to message mode, so he's really not here, or he'd be on the airport's wireless." Reid was winding up to panic, eyes already wide and sharp. "Something's wrong."  
  
"He's probably stuck in traffic." Duke clapped him on the back. "You two need a ride back to the office?"  
  
Reid looked like he wasn't sure if he'd take the offer, but Chaz cut in.  
  
"Yes. Best place to be, if something's wrong. Hope you cleaned out the back seat, Brady!" He took Reid by the shoulders. "Leave him a message and let him know. Then call Garcia and tell her what's going on, okay? I'm gonna go rattle security and see what falls out."  
  
"He said he was going to rent a car. That he'd wait until he was on his way to do it, so it wouldn't show up in the records before he could get to it." Reid's breathing slowed as he focused on the problem, on the pieces he could put together to solve it.  
  
"I got the other badge. I'll hit the rental desk," Brady volunteered, tossing his car keys to Duke. "We'll know if he got as far as reserving the car, and whether it's been picked up. Time frame's important, here. If we know when, we can figure out where."  
  
Reid nodded, looking from Chaz back to the phone in his hand. "I know you're right."  
  
"C'mon, kid. Let's go sit in the air conditioning while you make those calls. Let Brady and Villette do the heavy lifting. You just think. Anything you remember might give us something to work with -- you know the drill."  
  
Chaz watched Duke lead Reid toward the car, chatting him up like a cop and a victim. They'd all seen that combination, before. Still, he didn't let go of Reid's mind, and the further they got from him, the more he wondered at that. Was that really Reid, or was that his own echoes of Reid? They hadn't needed eye contact for a while, but this was... He wondered how long he could hold on. He wondered how effective he'd be at this distance.  
  
"Villette. You're staring." Brady nudged him.  
  
"Sorry. Flashbacks." Chaz shook his head and started toward the airport proper. "He's right. Frank's... Frank's actually missing, if we can't reach him."  
  
"A grown-ass adult in the middle of rush-hour traffic? Come on." Brady followed, not quite convinced.  
  
"No, Brady. He's _one of us_. He's halfway to being Hafs. If we can't reach him, he's out of network range, and that shouldn't be happening. Not here. You get cel signal even where you don't get city wireless. _Real_ dead zones are almost non-existent around here. The only reason he's not as good as Hafs is he hasn't figured out how to pull a satellite uplink out of his ass, and if that doesn't happen in the middle of whatever's going on here, I'm going to be extremely surprised."  
  
"The consultant is a gamma." Brady blinked.  
  
"The gamma is a consultant, so we can keep an eye on him."  
  
"Why didn't I know this?"  
  
"Because you're really kind of a _dick_ about us, Brady. It was need to know, and now you need to know. You need to know what we're looking for, and you need to know he's probably going to need an ambulance, when we find him, because I have no doubt he's been grabbing at anything that might be a network since he disappeared."  
  
"I am not a dick!"  
  
"You fucking _are_! You're afraid of us, and most of the time you're all right, but then..." Chaz huffed. "Look at me, Brady. You pulled a gun on me, because you thought I was a serial killer. _Me_."  
  
"As you've pointed out, you'd be a really good serial killer! And that's on Reyes, not me. Reyes set you up. Reyes set _me_ up."  
  
"Reyes..." Chaz rolled his eyes and shook his head. "And this is the only time you will ever hear me say this, but Reyes can suck dicks in hell. I love him, but I have a lot of trouble liking him, some days. If I get like that, you have my permission to shoot me."  
  
Brady laughed and pulled open the door to the terminal building. "You've got a deal. One was enough."

* * *

Byers stared at the message, waiting for something to change -- the words, the image, anything. But, no matter how many times he blinked, rubbed his eyes, or looked away and back again, the message remained the same.  
  
' _Bring us the head of Paul Asher._ '  
  
That was almost all right, though. He could handle that. What he couldn't handle was the photo of Langly crumpled on a concrete floor. And now Langly wasn't picking up the phone.  
  
"Frohike? We've got a problem!" he sounded panicked. He didn't want to sound panicked, but he supposed he was panicked. Panicked enough to be worried about whether he sounded panicked, instead of the glaringly obvious fact that Langly was definitely abducted and possibly dead.  
  
"What kind of problem? New tenants being assholes? We lose big on a deal? Bigfoot sighted in downtown Alexandria?" Frohike came up carrying fresh coffee and spotted the image when he leaned in to set a cup next to Byers. "Oh, shit."  
  
"He's probably alive." Byers wanted to sound sure, but to his own ears, the words sounded like pleading. "He has to be alive if they want to trade him for Asher."  
  
"Or this is a setup that gets us all killed," Frohike pointed out, pushing up his glasses and squinting at the screen. "Where'd this come in to?"  
  
"K. Fitzgerald. They haven't linked us to anything else -- _that_ I can be sure of -- but using Langly for leverage? Someone saw me. Someone saw us, together, and they figured it out. Someone knows who we are."  
  
"You sure?" Frohike pulled his chair over and tapped the screen. "That's addressed to Mr Fitzgerald. They really wanted to scare the shit out of us, they'd be calling you Mr _Byers_."  
  
"He's not answering the phone."  
  
"They probably took it away from him." Frohike shrugged and shook his head, dismissively.  
  
"No, Frohike. He doesn't need to _have_ the phone to answer it. _He's_ the network node, and the node isn't responding."  
  
"Oh, shit. Okay, but he's really obviously unconscious in that photo." Frohike squinted at it, leaning in front of Byers. "Give me the photo and call Penny. Then you should probably call Reid."  
  
"Why don't you call Dr Reid while I call Penny?"  
  
They stared at each other, for a long moment, before Frohike suggested a solution. "Why don't we let Penny call Reid?"

* * *

Once she saw the image, Garcia did not call Reid, she called Hafidha, and Hafidha called Villette. And then she took a few long, deep breaths, got another cup of coffee, and pinned three talk windows to the top of her screen -- Whiskey, Fitz, and Hafidha, each of them working a different angle. She was exactly where she belonged, putting all the pieces together, as much as she hated it when the victim was someone she knew. She could do this. They'd find him.  
  
And she'd pity anyone who crossed Reid like this, but whatever happened, they'd have it coming. She just hoped he wouldn't do anything that would get him fired. Or put back in prison. Or both. Both would be really bad. Beyond bad. Terrible.  
  
There was no metadata in the image, she finally conceded. No location data, no camera information, not even a timestamp. Concrete floor, though... She reached back out to Fitz.  
  
_Pull the property listings again and get materials. Concrete floor. If we assume he's being held somewhere they own..._  
  
_And it's a good assumption. That cuts out anywhere residential or with office carpet or linoleum._  
  
_Basements._  
  
_Shit, you're right._  
  
_Office of Divine Wisdom. I'm always right._

* * *

"Spencer." Chaz slid into the back seat of Brady's car, next to him, the two of them folded uncomfortably into a space that was meant for people a foot shorter.  
  
Reid could feel the cautious calm radiating from Chaz, the intentional attempt to set him at ease, and he pushed back against it, a white wall of fear and rage.  
  
"No. I need you here and now. We have to find him, first." Chaz reached out and took Reid's hands. "Focus."  
  
"On _what_?" Reid snapped.  
  
"We've got a lot more pieces than we did an hour ago, and I need you to help me put them together. You know him better than I do."  
  
Reid took a deep breath and nodded, eyes closing as the expression slid off his face completely. "Tell me what you have."  
  
"I'm going to give you the sequence in the order I think it happened. He really did leave the site a few minutes after he called you, alone and on a motorcycle. About ten minutes after the call, he made the reservation for the rental car -- cutting it really close, but I think he was screwing with the maintenance records, to keep the car from going to anyone else before he could reserve it. It's obvious, if you're looking for it, but no one should have been looking for it, because he'd have come in, picked up the car, and brought it back in the morning. And then probably erased all trace of himself."  
  
Reid nodded again, eyes still closed. "That's something he would do. ... Motorcycle?"  
  
"Bought it this morning. Fitz confirms it -- says he wanted something less obvious than Uber, and that he does know how to ride, he just hasn't done it in twenty years."  
  
"Are we looking for--"  
  
"Rossi and Jareau found it. In a ditch, about three miles from the site." Reid swallowed hard, and Chaz paused. "Reid, look at me. There's no blood. He's not there, but there's no blood. And there's no emergency call, either."  
  
"There's no wireless out there. You remember." Reid shook his head.  
  
"Cel network. There's a tower pretty close, and it's serving the IP associated with the car reservation." Chaz took a breath and sighed. "Here's where I start guessing, for a little bit. I think someone ran him off the road and grabbed him. There's no sign the bike was hit, so he probably avoided the collision and tipped himself into the ditch. Someone with a better eye for car accidents can probably figure out the speed and angles involved, but he definitely didn't get hit by a car. Which means he's probably still alive, if a little banged up. It also means we don't have any paint chips for comparison."  
  
"Which wouldn't help until the prosecution, anyway." A few long, slow breaths. "What aren't you telling me? I can feel it bouncing around your head."  
  
"Saving the best for last. We know who took him. Fitz got an email. One of Helmsman's people claims to be willing to trade him for Paul Asher."  
  
Reid grabbed the sides of Chaz's face, eyes wide. "Where and when?"  
  
"Fitz is working on that." Chaz sighed. "But, Spencer, you know what abductions are like. You don't bring the victim to the exchange point, unless you're a moron."  
  
"And they're lying anyway." Reid let go and slumped into the corner where the back of the seat met the door. "They're not going to let him go. They want Fitz, too."  
  
"Which is why they're not sending Fitz. They're sending your man Simmons..." Chaz tipped his head to the side. "Once they figure out where to send him. I assume they'll have a substitute Asher, as well."  
  
"They're going to get him killed." Reid shook his head and fumbled for his phone. "This isn't what it looks like, and they're going to get him killed. I have to call Garcia. They need to delay any attempt at making the exchange until we've had a chance to find him some other way. Helmsman's trying to get rid of a problem. Frank's just bait, right now -- to catch Fitz and Asher -- and then all three of them die. They may use Fitz and Asher to go after Holly, first. Get everyone who can authoritatively speak against them. If we take down their exchange team, and the exchange team doesn't know where Frank's being held -- and they probably won't, for exactly this reason -- this is going to get very nasty, very quickly, and I'd really prefer not to be mailed any bloody fingers, this year. That's not what I want for my birthday, thanks. I want him back in one piece."  
  
Chaz resisted the urge to kiss Reid's forehead, but he thought it hard enough that Reid flashed him a tiny smile. "This is why I need you focused."  
  
Reid nodded stiffly as he scrolled down to Garcia's number. "I know."


	14. Chapter 14

The first thing Langly became aware of was the taste of vomit, and shortly after it, the splitting headache that suggested he'd gotten way the hell too drunk. But, why? And if he'd been drunk, where was Byers? He tried to blink, to open his eyes, and that's when he realised something was wrong.  
  
His eyes had been taped shut, and no matter how he stretched his face, he couldn't get it to peel. His forehead rocked against something soft and slick, with a rounded edge, and when he tried to push himself up, he realised he couldn't bend his arms. Or his legs. He almost tore his shoulder out, trying, but however gentle the surface of the restraints might be -- he couldn't find a sharp edge, anywhere -- they were immovable.  
  
He heard the sound of a door opening, and as the change in air pressure dragged a breeze across his skin, he had one more revelation about his condition -- he'd been stripped naked. Or mostly naked. Something was wrong with some spots on his back and the backs of his legs. They didn't feel quite the same as the rest of his skin. More tape?  
  
"Good evening, Mr Langly."  
  
He froze at the sound of the voice. Completely stopped breathing.  
  
"Now, now, don't pretend you're still asleep. I know better."  
  
He made a decision, the only one that seemed reasonable. "Are you talking to _me_?" He huffed. "Are we doing this again? Really? My name's not _Langly_ , it's _Arroway_. Do you need me to spell that for you?"  
  
"We have information that suggests otherwise. You're good, but you're not that good."  
  
"Bullshit!" Langly snapped, catching himself before he declared himself the best. "What you've got is the Vanity transcripts, and you know damn well I just look like a dead guy! I'm not putting up with this shit!"  
  
"I don't think you really have a choice." The voice paused to let that sink in. "And in the end, it doesn't matter who you are. It only matters what and who you know."  
  
The first thing out of Langly's mouth was an inadvisable bit of jumprope rhyme, from somebody's childhood, possibly his own, or maybe he'd overheard it out the window somewhere along the way. Didn't matter. It was the wrong thing to say and he made no attempt to stop it. "I know I know my sister and her eighteen-hour br--"  
  
And then the electricity hit.  
  
Someone was screaming, and Langly wished to god they'd shut up. A second later he realised that was him.  
  
And then it stopped. Everything hurt -- _everything_. There were muscles he apparently had that he'd never considered before, but he couldn't ignore their existence now.  
  
"What the _hell_?" he demanded, trying to stay angry as the fear coiled around his bones.  
  
"Tell me about Holly Fitzgerald."  
  
"Holly? What about Holly?" Langly noticed the voice hadn't said 'Susanne', and if nobody had made that connection he wasn't going to do it for them. "She's fucking nuts. I have a crush on her brother. He's hot. She's crazy. I don't really pay attention to her! I heard she got married? Maybe living in Virginia? I don't want anything to do with her!"  
  
"You don't even like her, but you broke into the Dawson Memorial Building and abducted her?"  
  
" _Abducted_ \--? Are you out of your _mind_?" Langly struggled to turn his head, before realising he wouldn't be able to see, anyway. "We _rescued_ her!"  
  
"You abducted a woman in protective custody. Why?"  
  
"You know these bullshit mind games would be a lot more effective if I wasn't chained to a table and getting lightning shot up my ass," Langly snapped, and the voice went on as if he'd answered the question.  
  
"Tell me about Ken Fitzgerald."  
  
"Kennedy Fitzgerald, so like, instant JFK jokes, but he's touchy about those. We met in Baltimore like a hundred years ago. Great guy. Nice ass. All the personality of wallpaper paste, but _wow_. I'd give my left nut for a piece of--"  
  
"Tell me about John Byers."  
  
"John who? Never heard of him." Langly had never been a good liar, but maybe he was nervous enough that it would be impossible to tell the difference.  
  
The electricity bit into him again, and his muscles cramped and seized, straining against the brackets holding him down. Oh, god, he was going to dislocate something. He was going to rip his own arm off, if this didn't stop.  
  
His head was still buzzing, ears ringing, when the voice spoke again.  
  
"Tell me about John Byers."  
  
"Who the fuck is John Byers?" he demanded, voice ragged from screaming. He'd always been a bad liar, and he could hear the terror in his own voice, now. But, if there was one thing he was good at, it was stubbornly sticking to even the most idiotic bullshit that fell out of his mouth.  
  
He hoped that would keep working, as the electricity tore at his muscles again.  
  
"Tell me about Paul Asher."  
  
" _What?_ " Langly would have blinked stupidly, if his eyes hadn't been taped shut. He tried to spit away the strands of drool hanging from his lips. The cramp between his hips suggested he'd pissed himself at some point, but he couldn't feel the liquid. Actually, if he thought about it, he couldn't feel anything for about a foot below the top of his hips. No, he could feel the cramp. He couldn't feel anything _touching_ him. The table was cut away like it was under his face. Somebody had put some real thought into this.  
  
"Tell me about Paul Asher."  
  
"The guy in the newspaper. The Post says he's trying to defund the Air Force or something? Not that into politics, but it's been on the front page of every paper in the city for a month. Look, I'm a technical analyst. I do network security on contract. I know a lot about computers, but I really don't pay a hell of a lot of attention to people who aren't paying me."  
  
"Tell me about John Byers."  
  
"I don't know any fucking John Byers!" Anger was easy. If he could just hold onto that... what? What then? What exactly was being pissed off going to get him?  
  
Another shock, apparently, like the angry older brother of all the times he'd shorted a ground wire on his own hand. Except that was definitely not his hand. He couldn't stop shaking, could barely draw breath through the clattering in his chest, and it occurred to him dimly that wasn't the electricity, that was his own panicked sobbing.  
  
"Tell me about Susanne Modeski."   
  
A chill sliced through his bones and the weight of dread seemed to sink him into the surface of the table. "Who?"  
  
Everything turned white, like someone had turned on floodlights inside his skull. And then everything turned black, again.

* * *

"I can't let you drive," Chaz argued, shaking his head. "Look at you, Spencer. You wouldn't let you drive in this condition."  
  
And Reid knew he was right, but... "I have to make a call. If Helmsman's as far into our systems as I'm afraid he is, there's exactly one safe place I can do that, and you can't know where that is. You can't. I'm not betraying Frank's trust like that."  
  
"And you can't drive there, anyway, because they're probably watching us, and you'll give them Fitz if you drive there."  
  
"Which is why we're not dead. Someone's hoping we'll go for Fitz or Asher." Reid squared his jaw, flexed his fingers to make sure he could still use them, even if he couldn't quite feel them. "Well, surprise. New solution."  
  
He switched phones and smacked the button Langly had told him would cause the unit to re-identify itself. It seemed to take forever, but every second dragged, as he studied the space around him. The screen finally announced success, and he punched the speed dial number he'd never called.  
  
"Fitz? I'm with Chaz," he said, identifying the reason he might say strange things right up front. "If nobody's said it to you, you need to stay inside. We think they're trying to find you and Asher. So, I need you to call Asher, and I need you to do it invisibly. And then I need you to figure out how to move him without _anyone_ figuring out it's happened. The Bureau cannot know where he's gone. Helmsman's people don't have the clearance to find the safehouse, yet, or they wouldn't need Frank. We have to assume that's not going to last. The longer we can keep them guessing, the longer we can keep him alive."  
  
He listened to Byers's protests, as the man worked through everything and started planning. And then something occurred to him. "We just have to wait for him to wake up."  
  
The thought washed over Chaz at the same time, a glimmer of hope in his eyes sharpening into a vengeful gleam.  
  
"They don't know _what_ he is. Someone in that building with the concrete floor has a cel phone."

* * *

The next time Langly woke, it was to the feeling of spiders on every inch of his skin. A moment's panic gave way to the certainty that he was imagining it, that it was some side effect of the repeated shocks, like that time his whole arm had tingled for an hour after the fourteenth time he'd bumped that stupid wire. He wished he could see. If he could see, he could find a network. He could see the networks, if he could see at all.  
  
_Why?_  
  
The question rang through his head in Hafidha's voice.  
  
_They're not in the visible spectrum to begin with. Why do you need to see?_  
  
And that was what she'd meant about getting bound up in the mythology, wasn't it? He'd gotten so used to seeing that he'd never thought of doing it any other way. But, there were hand gestures that he'd already given meaning to, and while he couldn't move more than his fingers, he should still be able to call the network to him, to touch it.  
  
_Thinking too small, baby gamma..._  
  
Resonance. It was mostly bullshit that people could hear wifi signals and shit, but the principle stood that there was still some sort of vibration, even if it was way outside human perception. Except he wasn't really human, was he? Not any more. He should be able to see them without eyes. He should be able to see the room with how the network interacted with it. He just had to get a grip on a signal.  
  
A wave of blue brushed past him. An outgoing call. Oh, hello, AT&T.  
  
These shitheads were going down.


	15. Chapter 15

Chaz's phone chirped a single, instantly recognisable syllable from a Tones On Tail song, and he checked his messages, knowing that was Hafidha and that she wasn't using her phone.  
  
_I know where he is, and now so do you. Your move._  
  
The rest of that message was a Google maps link.  
  
"Text Brady. Tell him I'm sorry about his car." Chaz stood up and pulled Reid with him. " _I'm_ driving."  
  
"What--?" Reid blinked, and then the rest of Chaz's thought caught up with him. "Let's go. Call for backup _after_ we get there."  
  
"That was my thought. It would be stupid to do this without backup, but I really want to put my thumbs in somebody's eyesockets, right now, as much as I'll be trying not to do exactly that."  
  
Reid rolled the image around in his mind like a good whiskey, nodding contemplatively. "Vivid."

* * *

"Tell me about Charles Villette."  
  
"He's got a big dick! What do you want to know?" Langly was exhausted, most of his focus going into encryption and transmission, his mouth running on autopilot. It barely mattered what he said, now. Hafidha knew where he was. He'd be out of here, soon.  
  
"Tell me about Charles Villette."  
  
"He fucks like a demon. God, what an incredible body. I could ride that all ni--"  
  
The shock interrupted the network connection again, left Langly groping for it, as his mind ricocheted off itself in some parody of drunkenness. Electrical... if he could unlock electronic doors with his bare hands, then he didn't need a wireless signal to work. He could follow the wires back. He could get into this fucking table and break it. I mean, it would either work or he was going to die, but either one would probably be a relief. He grabbed the network again, so Hafidha would have a record, whatever happened.  
  
"Tell me about Spencer Reid."  
  
Langly ignored the voice, panting as if he'd reached his absolute limit. And really, he just about had. When was the last time he'd eaten anything? God, how much of that headache was the shocks and how much was him pushing too hard? He remembered some things Chaz had said and found himself incredibly glad he'd lost his sense of smell at some point in the middle of all this.  
  
He could feel the inside of the switch like it was in his hands. All he had to do was--  
  
"Any time you'd like to stop pretending, Mr Langly. You're only making this worse for yourself."  
  
"What was the question?" Langly knew he sounded smug, and he did not care. Let that asshole try to shock the smug out of him, now.  
  
"Tell me about Spencer Reid."  
  
"Isn't he dreamy? He looks so sweet and delicate, you'd never think he was a screamer."  
  
Langly heard the pop, felt the capacitors burst. That wasn't going to be a quick fix.  
  
"Oops," he drawled, picking through the remaining circuitry for some sign of the locks on the restraints. Nothing. Shit. Manual locks.  
  
The door slid open. "We'll return to this conversation, Mr Langly."  
  
"My name's not fucking _Langly_!" Langly shouted.

* * *

Reid was on Chaz's phone, trying to calm Brady down. "Yes, we took the car and ditched you. I admit-- No, that probably wasn't smart. Look, have you actually tried to stand in Villette's way? I really don't advise it, even in a bulletproof vest. ... And yes, that's _my_ boyfriend. Yes, of course we'll call for backup, just as soon as we verify the location. Backup and an _ambulance_."  
  
Reid fell quiet for a moment, and Chaz could make out the edges of Brady's snippy reply.  
  
"I don't give a shit about _them_ , Agent Brady, but my boyfriend, as you put it, is a gamma, and I don't know when the last time was that he ate. I'm absolutely sure that if he's awake and alive, he's doing what he does best. ... Yes, thank you, Agent Brady. A helicopter is an excellent choice. Make sure there's room for you and Agent Todd, on the way in. I'm not sure what we're walking into."  
  
Reid put down one phone and picked up another from the pile on the seat. "Fitz? Sending you coordinates. I need to know if we have this building on the list, and if we do-- Yes. Exactly. I'd appreciate the blueprints. ... Text me. I'll let Chaz deal with it."  
  
"One of these days, you have to actually deal with the machines, Spencer." Chaz rolled his eyes and changed lanes in a way that sparked a cascade of angry honking.  
  
"I deal with them exactly as much as I need to. If I really needed to, I could do this myself. But, you're here, and it's faster and easier to let you do it."  
  
"It's also going to be faster and easier if you wait in the car," Chaz pointed out.  
  
"Absolutely not." A feral grin crept across Reid's face. "I go in first."

* * *

Byers knew exactly the sort of stupid he was about to become a party to, even as he located and sent the blueprints. Would it be worse with more people or better? Worse, he decided, remembering any number of times the three of them had done things ten people couldn't. Dr Reid was smart enough to get in quietly and get Langly out, before bringing down the fist of the Bureau on whatever was left in the building, and Agent Villette seemed like a sensible sort.  
  
A message from Hafidha appeared in one window.  
  
_Writing to disk. Don't panic, it's just me. Don't open it. You don't want to hear this. But, I need to put it somewhere safer than I've got._  
  
Byers didn't open the file, but he did find it, watching the disk grind as Hafidha slammed more data than the network should have been able to handle, and the file size kept going up. Raw audio. From _what_? Interview? Had they caught someone, already? Had one of the people they'd gotten in the morning's raid known something about Langly? But, why wouldn't he want--  
  
And then he remembered what he'd said to Frohike earlier. Langly had started doing his own encryption and transmission. He was more secure than even the phones he'd built. Langly was broadcasting, and it was something he didn't want to hear. And that made him very, very nervous. It couldn't be that bad, right?  
  
He took a deep breath and opened it.  
  
_"Tell me about John Byers."_

* * *

Reid chambered a round as he got out of the car, holding up the handle to close the door quietly behind him. Warehouse, and that was a nightmare -- the floorplan wasn't restricted to the blueprints they were holding. Those were just the permanent walls and structures, which included a walkway above them.  
  
"Are you up to this?" Reid asked, quietly, studying the building.  
  
"You mean 'how many of them can I handle, if they start shooting'." Chaz took a deep breath and sighed. "All of them. If the shit hits the fan, put your knees on the floor and don't look at me. Just wait until the screaming stops."  
  
" _All_ of them?" Reid eyed Chaz.  
  
Chaz kept his eyes on things that weren't Reid as he nodded. "Anyone who can see me is going to wish they couldn't. Do not look at me. This is why you should either wait in the car or stay in front of me, and we both know rabid dogs couldn't keep you out."  
  
Reid spotted a disused-looking door along the side of the building, bearing a standard key lock. "You picking that, or am I?"  
  
"How did you know I could--"  
  
"Because I read the casefile from Texas."  
  
Chaz shook his head. "I had the key."  
  
"You also mentioned that you could've done it with a safety pin and considered trying it with your zipper tab, but couldn't get the angle."  
  
"I said _what_?"  
  
"A lot of things. You don't remember most of it, I'm sure, but I remember everything that was transcribed." Reid produced a set of picks from under his belt. "And that's when I started carrying these. Just in case of exactly the kind of emergencies I'm getting extremely tired of. Useless against duct tape, though."  
  
The gun went back into the holster as Reid leaned down to get a better look at the lock, and beside him, Chaz changed the way the light reflected, refracted.  
  
"If that squeaks, I go in first," Chaz insisted, surprised when Reid looked right at him. No, of course Reid could see him. Reid could see him from the inside.  
  
Reid squinted. "What did you just do, and why am I getting a headache?"  
  
"Stop looking at me and pick the lock. It's a lot harder to do this if you're staring," Chaz hissed. "Or give me the picks and don't look at me."  
  
The lock didn't resist for long, with Reid's attention on it, even with the roiling remnants of a headache that felt like his brain would pour out of his ear if he tipped his head too far. Not looking at Chaz seemed to be helping with that, though. He could feel the echo of rage through them both, sleek and venomous, and took a few deep breaths, reminding himself that the first shot should rarely be fatal, as he swapped the picks for his gun.  
  
"Did we call for backup?" Chaz asked, knowing damn well they hadn't.  
  
"Brady did. We've got about ten minutes before the cavalry descends." Reid took another slow breath. "By the book?"  
  
"I don't think the book covers what we're about to do, here."  
  
"Take the door."  
  
Reid stepped to one side and Chaz opened the door to the other, dropping a very surprised-looking man with a very large gun at their feet, cigarette bouncing out of his mouth as he hit the ground. Chaz kicked the gun out of the guy's hand as Reid levelled his own gun at the man's kneecap.  
  
"FBI. Where's Frank Arroway?"  
  
The man on the ground blinked up in absolute terror, eyes returning to Reid again and again, and never registering Chaz at all, which Reid found a little strange. He was standing right there.  
  
"You have two choices: I handcuff you and put you in the back of the car, or I shoot you in the knee and then I handcuff you and put you in the back of the car. Where is Frank Arroway?"  
  
The guy gave him a blank look. "What's he look like? I don't know everybody's name yet. Please don't shoot me..."  
  
A flicker of thought, but Chaz was already watching the door, in case this was a stalling tactic.  
  
"My height, long blond hair, probably unconscious? Looks like he got hit by a car?" Reid could feel himself holding the trigger a little too tightly, the inky-black whispers of temptation pooling in the back of his mind. _Just kill them all. Every moment you wait, Langly suffers. The longer this takes, the worse it will be for him, and that's on you now. You can do this faster. Look at what they've done to you They don't deserve to live._

Chaz pushed back hard enough for both of them. He couldn't always see it, when it was just him. He just... sounded like himself, but angrier. But, watching the Anomaly try to exploit the connection between them, he could definitely see it. He knew exactly what that was.

"Oh, that guy!" The man on the ground looked relieved. "This place is set up stupid, and you have to go to the middle to get anywhere, but you go to the middle, and then you go down three racks, I think, and they took him to the room at the end on the left."  
  
"Thank you." Reid stepped back, but didn't lower the gun. "Please sit up; you're under arrest."  
  
As expected, the guy tried to make a break for it, but his lunge came up short when Chaz's knee took him under the chin. Chaz didn't make a sound, but Reid's skull rang with pain and expletives, as he handcuffed the stunned man to the telephone box on side of the building.  
  
"Sit. Stay. My partner's the one you need to be afraid of, and I don't think you know where he is." Reid's smile was one Chaz was glad he'd never seen on his own face. That was a one-way trip to Idlewood, if he'd ever seen one, a next-door neighbour to the customer service smile.  
  
"We need to clear the walkways," Reid realised, looking up the stairs to either side of the door.  
  
"No, we don't. Stay in front of me." Chaz mentally nudged Reid forward, sliding his phone back into his pocket.  
  
"I don't know about you, but they can see me, and I'd rather not get shot in the head," Reid argued, under his breath.  
  
"Stay in front of me, as close as you can without tripping us both." Chaz cleared his throat. "And announce yourself. Do it by the book. Loud."  
  
" _What?_ " Reid almost turned around, but Chaz's hand stopped him.  
  
"Come on, we can do this, we've done it before. Breathe with me. I need to know exactly where every part of you is, when we go through this door."  
  
"No, I'm not worried about us, I'm worried about _him_!"  
  
Chaz fished his phone out again and put in the hand that wasn't holding Reid's gun. "Don't. Nothing can get to him but us, for now, but I'm not sure how long he can hold that. He's either manifesting another power or he's taking Hafs's advice and shaking off the mythology. We just have to get to him before he blacks out."  
  
Reid glanced down at the text from Hafidha open on the screen. ' _Electronic interior doors jammed. Misrouted circuit. Not broken, just knock._ '  
  
Handing the phone back to Chaz, Reid stepped through the door, moving swiftly toward the centre of the building. He could see what the guy had been talking about -- none of the racks went all the way through to the corridor they were in, presumably to protect pedestrians from oncoming forklifts. "FBI! I need you all to show yourselves!"  
  
He saw the white sleeve before he registered the rest of the body, and he'd shot the man in the knee, before he finished observing the gun at the end of the sleeve he'd first spotted. And that, he thought, he'd borrowed from Chaz, because he wasn't a bad shot, but those weren't _his_ reflexes. "Gentlemen! There's no nee--"  
  
Chaz shoved him to the ground, and there was an airy pop and a sudden breeze behind him. A few gunshots, the sound of bullets hitting metal, the sound of a breaking window, a flash of pain that wasn't his in a part of their body he couldn't find, and then the screaming started. Some of it belonged to Chaz, but he still couldn't figure out where Chaz had been hit. Everything smelled like blood, but there was no blood. Nothing wet, nothing on the floor around them, where the shadows seemed to be ... what was up there that would cast a shadow like that?  
  
Chaz urged Reid up, but kept him facing away, moving forward, as the sound of the first body hitting the concrete floor echoed behind them. Again, Reid almost turned, knowing exactly what would make that sound, but Chaz caught him and pushed him back. The shadow around them shrank, and Chaz held onto Reid's shoulders with both hands, trying to catch his breath, clear his head, and not accidentally dump any of what he'd just done onto Reid.  
  
"Just the men we were waiting for," announced a voice from the end of the passage they'd turned into, and Reid pulled the trigger twice, with an accuracy that would have been deadly if he'd been aiming for something other than kneecaps.  
  
He stopped to kick the guns away, as he came up on the fallen duo. "You sound like you know what's going on here. That's going to work in your favour. Where is Frank Arroway?"  
  
"Dead."  
  
Chaz didn't move fast enough to stop Reid from kicking the fallen figure right in the broken knee, and then again in the face, but it might have been because he really didn't _want_ to stop Reid. Still, one of each was enough, for now, and he brought Reid back with the force of a thought. "He's lying, and you know it. And _I_ know it. And this is the right door."  
  
The lock suddenly disengaged, and they all heard it.  
  
Reid slapped the big green button marked 'Open' and lunged forward, as the door slid out of the way, only to catch on Chaz's arm. "What are you doing? We're here! He's here! _Frank?_ "  
  
"Wait wait wait! Just wait a second. Let me make sure this isn't one of those attempt a rescue and the room explodes things. Didn't you have one a couple years ago?" When Reid stopped struggling, Chaz let go and crouched down beside one of the two fallen men in the corridor. "What's in the room?"  
  
The mirror told him everything he needed to know, and more, and he held it back from Reid -- didn't disconnect, but pushed something very different to what he was pulling. Reid would see it soon enough, and Chaz wanted to be sure he'd made it into the room before that happened, because he wasn't sure he had it in him to hold Reid back, again.  
  
"Superman underwear? I don't know if I'm more impressed at the irony or the fact you went that long without doing the wash." Chaz scoffed at the man on the floor, as he patted Reid's back and dug the multitool out of his own pocket, offering it. "Go be a hero. You want the largest hex wrench on the knife side, not the ones on the can opener side. I'll clean up the mess."  
  
The first thing on the other side of the door was the stench, like someone had poured fermented honey into an outhouse. The air was still, he realised, and that was only making it worse. Langly had probably shut down the HVAC when he went after the doors, to keep them from gassing him. Behind him, Reid could hear Chaz doing ... something. The howls of despair had started again, and Reid couldn't force himself to care. Except...  
  
"Don't do what Allie did, or we're in the same position we were in to start!"  
  
Silence fell, and his mind finally made sense of what he was seeing. That was Langly, his back studded with electrodes, stretched face-down along some sort of slotted table that looked like it might originally have been designed for... exactly the purpose it had been put to, honestly. Still breathing, but not saying anything. Not moving.   
  
Still breathing.  
  
Photos of the scene first. Touch nothing; he's still breathing; you're here. He nearly dropped his phone, fingers numb with horror and relief, as he moved around the table, photographing from every potentially relevant angle. As the table loomed in his mind, Chaz pushed back the locations of the screws, and with shaking hands, Reid undid them, one at a time, far too slow, sliding the cuffs out of where they locked into the table and tossing them aside, peeling off the electrodes as he worked his way around the table, again.  
  
He turned Langly carefully -- no blood, nothing broken, still breathing. Just the light chafing from the oiled vinyl, split lips, a few bruises, and the vomit drying in the ends of his hair. Gathering Langly into his arms, Reid carried him out, noticing that neither Chaz nor the two men he'd shot were still by the door. When he reached the centre of the building, again, eight people were bound with coarse, nylon rope that had obviously been found somewhere in the warehouse, and a ninth lay dead, just at the edge of vision, down another passage.  
  
"Give me your jacket," Reid said, softly, knowing Chaz didn't need to hear him. Somewhere between the door of that room and now, he realised, he'd gone numb. The only thing he could feel was Langly's weight in his arms. He had no room to care about anything else. There was no room for error, and he'd make none.  
  
"Hospital," Chaz breathed, tucking his jacket around Langly's midsection.  
  
"I know. Brady's bringing the air ambulance."  
  
"I'm going with you."  
  
Reid blinked. "Of course you are. Who else would explain it?"  
  
"And I'm picking the hospital." Chaz saw Reid hesitate. "They've treated _me_."  
  
"You're picking the hospital."  
  
Chaz looked up and yawned, popping his ears. "Move. We've got about two minutes. Leave them here. Somebody'll clean it up. Brady, probably, the poor bastard, but we want to be waiting when they touch down."  
  
Reid made his way toward the door they'd come in, slowly realising how heavy Langly actually was, but completely unwilling to let go.


	16. Chapter 16

The door of the hospital room opened, and Chaz left Reid beside the bed to put himself in front of it. There were only so many eyes that needed to be on Langly, right now, even if he was still unconscious.  
  
Surprisingly, Madeline Frost stood on the other side of the door, peering up at him with her ice-blue eyes. "Charles."  
  
"Surprise, it's not me, this time." Chaz smiled wryly and made no attempt to move out of her way. "But, you're holding the file, so you know that. And you also know he's not dead."  
  
"And I also know that I've handled that body, before, and he wasn't dead that time, either, no matter what they wanted me to write on the form."  
  
Chaz took a moment to consider that statement, Reid wringing out a sponge into a basin the only sound in the room.  
  
"Start from the beginning," Chaz said, stepping back to let Dr Frost into the room, and closing the door behind her.  
  
"His name is Richard Langly, and we were all very surprised when he survived what he'd been exposed to. I no longer have the official records of the incident. Everything was removed along with them -- there were two others in similar condition."  
  
"John Byers and Melvin Frohike," Reid filled in, dressed in scrubs, both hands gloved, and still trying to work the dried vomit out of Langly's hair before he woke up.  
  
"And this one has finally converted." Frost nodded slowly. "When I began to understand the Anomaly, insofar as anyone can understand it, it occurred to me to wonder about those three. If that might not have been why they recovered."  
  
"Just him, so far." Chaz shook his head. "And none of them eat like it. Well... Langly does. Now. Now that he's realised it's something he can use and control, something he can feed for better results."  
  
"No, that's not possible." Frost approached the bed to get a better look at Langly's legs. "Even as a beta, he must be eating more than he seems to be."  
  
"Drinking it, not eating it, but the numbers don't get anywhere near what Agent Villette proposes as normal, unless he's working." Reid glanced up and introduced himself. "Reid, BAU. I'd shake your hand, but..." he lied, nodding at the vomit-speckled water in the basin.  
  
"The liaison. I've seen your name." Frost nodded, and then changed the subject. "He's thin, but not dangerously so. If he's been afflicted ... it must be fifteen years, now, he should be--"  
  
"Like me. Like I was before." Chaz nodded. "I know. We think he either doesn't have a passive power, or it's something that's not being triggered by the environment -- something _weird_. You know me. Mine doesn't turn off for anything. We can't get his to kick _on_."  
  
Reid cleared his throat and Chaz pointed at him, firmly.  
  
"No." Chaz turned his attention back to Frost, finger still focused on Reid. "They're dating. He's joking. I'm not having that conversation."  
  
"You think it's something sexual, but surely that would have taken effect long before now. He must be in his fifties! I'm quite certain he'd have noticed, by now."  
  
Reid bit his lip and said nothing, trying to wring the water out of Langly's hair with a hand towel.  
  
Frost tapped the folder she held against Chaz's chest. "I'm sorry, Agent Villette. There is no official record."  
  
Chaz accepted the folder, stuffed it into the back of his pants and pulled his sweater over it. "Of course not. It never happened."  
  
"I can always depend upon you to take the point." Frost strode toward the door, to let herself out. "And I appreciate that you are not the patient and are therefore capable of remaining upright and conscious for an entire conversation."  
  
A pained smile stretched across Chaz's face as Frost pulled the door shut.

* * *

Chaz napped in a plastic chair that was not nearly designed for it, but was still preferable to some places he'd slept, while Reid continued to binge on the horrendous burnt coffee from the urn in the family lounge down the hall. Despite the coffee, he kept his head down, resting it on Langly's thigh, one of Langly's hands held in both of his as he recited his favourite parts of The Knight of the Cart from memory.  
  
"My scarf."  
  
Reid sat bolt upright at the sound of Langly's voice, sure he'd drifted off and kicking himself for not going for more coffee, sooner. But, Langly was squinting dizzily at him, fingers curling against his own.  
  
"Did you find my scarf?"  
  
And that was when Reid started to cry, finally, jaw trembling, tears pouring down his cheeks as he pressed his face to Langly's hand. It took him a few tries to get words out. "Don't worry about the scarf. I'll make you a new one."  
  
"Hey." Langly nudged Reid's face up with his fingers, waiting until Reid met his eyes. "Did you find my pants?"  
  
Reid laughed, tears still streaming down his face, and Langly's snickers turned into heavy coughs. Behind Reid, Chaz stirred, as Langly batted at whatever kept brushing against his face.  
  
"What the hell is--"  
  
"Stop." Reid grabbed Langly's other hand. "That's an IV."  
  
"Why's it in my face?"  
  
"Because it's in your neck." Reid took a deep breath and started from the top of that thought. "That was an argument I shouldn't have had to have, but it's a glucose drip, and I was not letting them put that in your hand. Saline, yes, but not glucose."  
  
"Ohhh, that's the voice of experience, isn't it?" Chaz snorted and yawned, instantly regretting the taste of hospital air. "What'd they do to you?"  
  
"Wrist, actually."  
  
Chaz made a strangled sound of sympathetic horror. "Yeah, I got to avoid that for the... obvious reasons. Still. No. How did I miss this stupidity?"  
  
"You were busy lecturing the intake nurse. I decided not to interrupt."  
  
Langly still looked less than amused with the situation. "So, you got them to stab me in the neck? How is this an improvement?"  
  
"You're awake and you're not screaming." Chaz pried himself out of the chair and crossed to the bed. "Sound like you've been doing a lot of it, though. How're you doing?"  
  
"Oh, you know, I feel like I got electrocuted until I pissed myself. Just dandy. Fucking _swell_." Langly looked down at himself, thankfully blanket-covered, and huffed in something approaching amusement. "And if we're talking about swelling, did I still have a boner when you found me? Because I guess that's a thing. Shoot enough lightning up my ass, and I get rock hard when it stops."  
  
Chaz tried not to laugh, rubbing his mouth contemplatively to hide the struggle. It wasn't funny. He was sure it wasn't funny. But, Langly had a way of making everything funny, especially when it shouldn't be.  
  
"Nothing that didn't appear to be an effect of gravity." Reid looked a lot less amused. Slightly concerned, even. "Your circulation seems to have recovered -- someone's been in and out to check."  
  
"We wouldn't let them put you on a monitor, until you woke up," Chaz said quietly. "Nothing with wires. We didn't want you to wake up like that."  
  
"The electrodes..." Reid explained.  
  
"So, we've been sitting here making sure you don't die while no one's looking. That was the deal."  
  
Langly looked back and forth between them, a thin smile creeping across his face. "Okay, so, if we're sure I'm not going to die, and my circulation's fine, I think this is the part where I talk you into a handjob, so I can make sure my dick still works."  
  
Chaz wheezed and then gave up on not laughing, hands pressed over his mouth as he cackled like a fool.  
  
"You're naked in a hospital bed. Anyone could come through that door at any moment. And? You are _so loud_." Reid ran his thumbnail across Langly's palm. "I think maybe this should wait until you're home, and I can more thoroughly appreciate the fact that you're still alive."  
  
"I'm not _always_ loud!" Langly protested. "I wasn't loud in Boston!"  
  
"Also there's the part where you shit all over him on the way in," Chaz pointed out, and Reid elbowed him sharply. "Twice."  
  
"I told you not to tell him that!" Reid hissed, looking mortified.  
  
"I'm sorry, I _what_?" Langly waited for one of them to tell him they were joking.  
  
"I was carrying you out. Your muscles were still recovering from the electricity, and you were pretty badly dehydrated, which I'm still a little curious about. You had some pretty bad cramps -- bad enough I could feel them when I tried to pick you up. So, I mean, it wasn't really unexpected, but I'm glad I wasn't wearing dry-clean only." Reid rubbed the back of his neck and kept his eyes on Langly's knees.  
  
Chaz pointed at Reid and raised his eyebrows at Langly. "And he still wants to bang you. If that's not love, I don't know what is."  
  
If there were a way for Reid to look more mortified, he was fairly sure he'd have to die to achieve it. "I do love you. I don't know what it would take to change that. And I'm so sorry I got you--"  
  
"You didn't. You need to hear the recordings, assuming that worked. This isn't about you, it's about me. Actually, it's about _Byers_." Langly patted at the side table hoping for a glass of water, and Chaz poured him one.  
  
"I picked up cough drops, the last time I ran out for coffee, just in case," Chaz admitted, opening the drawer on the side table.  
  
"You have cough drops and it took you this long to say anything?" Langly's glare could've melted metal.  
  
"You seemed to be doing all right! That and the gift shop only had cherry, and most of the time I'd rather suffer than put that in my mouth." Chaz poured a handful of them into Langly's lap.  
  
"Don't let the nurses catch you with those. They'll shit bricks," Reid sighed, sitting back down and resting his head on Langly's legs, again.  
  
Dead silence followed. Even the crinkling of the cough drop wrapper stopped.  
  
"Did you just say 'shit bricks'?" Langly blinked, stunned.  
  
"You know, I have a rather extensive vocabulary of vulgar turns of phrase in five languages. I just don't use them often, because my purposes are better served by things other than colourful metaphor."  
  
"He's an academic," Chaz joked. "Normally you'd have to insert beer before receiving expletives."  
  
"It's not an expletive," Reid muttered, pressing his face against Langly's knee. "It's an obscene verb phrase."  
  
"I'm going to let him have that one. He's the literature nerd." Chaz held his hands up and shrugged.  
  
"He's also pretty good with obscene verbs after a few kisses in the right places." Langly reached down and twisted his fingers into Reid's hair, with a small wince. "Did I actually pull that shoulder out?"  
  
"I don't think so." Chaz poked the shoulder in question, which was not a colour shoulders should be. "I think that's a sprain, maybe some torn muscle, but I'm _pretty sure_ that wasn't a dislocation." He stretched back with his other arm, shoulder cracking in the middle of the motion. "I'd have noticed."  
  
"So, what, fistful of Tylenol, don't do anything strenuous, spend a week in bed with a case of Twinkies and a pair of twinks?" Langly grinned, lopsidedly.  
  
"Twinks!?" Chaz sputtered. "Oh, because _you're_ one to talk!"  
  
Langly sat up straighter, a sharp inhale preceding his mouth clamping shut in blatant offence. Then he blinked and smiled smugly up at Chaz. "Of course I am. I'm too old for that."  
  
"And he'd have to shave his chest to really finish the image," Reid muttered against Langly's thigh, barely an active participant in the conversation. "Arms. Legs. I don't know if you've noticed, but he's really kind of fluffy."  
  
Chaz opened his mouth and Langly backhanded him in the hip.  
  
"Don't say it. I'm not _that_ fluffy _or_ that round."  
  
"Frohike." Reid picked up the thread, but not his head.  
  
"Exactly." Langly nodded and went to push his glasses up, suddenly realising he couldn't see because he wasn't wearing them. "Did... you find my glasses?"  
  
"Nada." Chaz shook his head. "No clothes, no glasses. I get the feeling we weren't supposed to find _you_."  
  
"I'm a little pissed about the pants. They were leather."  
  
"Leather?" Reid rolled his head to the side and looked up the length of Langly's leg.  
  
"Oh, see, that got his attention." Chaz laughed. "Instant boner, just add leather."  
  
"Definitely getting another pair before his birthd-- Oh god, what day is it?"  
  
"Wednesday," Reid mumbled, eyes drifting shut again. "I'm pretty sure it's Wednesday."  
  
"Technically, it's Thursday, but it was definitely Wednesday when you got out of bed," Chaz corrected, thumbing his pocketwatch back into his change pocket.  
  
"Okay I remember parts of Wednesday. That's not so bad." Langly sounded like he was trying to convince himself. "So, who do I have to blow to get out of here?"  
  
"They really want to hold onto you another day or two," Chaz warned, but he didn't sound like he expected to win that argument. He wasn't sure he wanted to win that argument. He hated hospitals. "You were in a coma, when you got here. Abducted, obviously tortured... and you're still not looking so good."  
  
"I can't find my glasses and I don't have any pants. Yeah, no shit, I don't look good." Langly coughed a few times. "And I don't sound great, either, because that's what happens when you spend that much time screaming and nobody gets you a glass of water. And I'd really much rather finish my suffering at home, if it's all the same to you."  
  
"This is going to be such a mess." Reid sighed, finally sitting up. "Things we don't have include clothes and a car. We came in the _helicopter_. We can't even sneak out properly." He pulled the wrong phone out of his pocket, tossed it on the bed, and then pulled out the right phone. "Garcia's going to kill me."  
  
He put the phone on speaker and called.  
  
"Office of Why The Fuck Are You Calling Me At Three In the Morning, dazed speaking, but if you can wait a minute I'll get confused!"  
  
"He's awake," Reid said, and listened to the sound of springs squeaking as Garcia sat up.  
  
"That is absolutely a reason to be calling me at three in the morning. What do you need, my dears?"  
  
Chaz choked off a snicker. "Pants."  
  
"Unfortunately, he's serious," Reid clarified. "Frank needs some clothes, and we need my car."  
  
"They're letting him out alr-- Reid, no. No, no, and no. I know how you are with hospitals, but no. You can not just--"  
  
"Second opinion says he can," Chaz chimed in. "Third opinion is the patient is refusing further care, and wants to get out of here before someone _finds him_. It's not serious -- he needs a sandwich, a few days in bed, and some stretching so his joints don't lock up. The longer he stays here, the more likely it is that Helmsman's going to find a way to finish the job, and word is he wants _us_ , too, so I'd like to get the hell out of here before I wind up shooting someone _in a hospital_. I'm pretty sure that's seven years bad luck, and I'd really rather not."  
  
"Oh, is that my problem? Shooting someone in a hospital? It would be that. Never the things your mother warned you about, is it?" Garcia sighed dramatically, the sound of typing coming through clearly. "Okay, it's going to take me about two hours to get the car to you, if we do that, and I'm going to suggest we don't. Let me see what I can do about getting a rental delivered, instead."  
  
"You know, I could--" Langly started, and Chaz jabbed a finger at him.  
  
"No. You can't. Don't even try. I know what they've put back into you, and it's not enough. You will sit there and pretend to be a nice, normal hacker until we get at least two meals into you."  
  
"You're going to have better luck finding pants there than I'm going to have getting pants to you, at this hour," Garcia announced, after a few more moments.  
  
"Oh, come on," Langly sighed. "There has to be something. We're in the diplomatic centre of the United fucking States of Capitalist Bullshit. Something has to deliver clothes at this hour -- at any hour. You can't tell me the Ambassador from Qatar wouldn't be able to get pants in the middle of the night."  
  
"That is waaaaay out of our price range." Garcia whistled.  
  
"It's not out of mine," Langly argued. "Give me the url and I'll--"  
  
"No," Chaz said again.  
  
"You will notice that I don't have my pants. And without my pants, I don't have my wallet. And without my wallet--"  
  
"You can recite the numbers off at least three of those cards off the top of your head, and if you can't, I know at _least_ one." Reid yawned and rubbed his face. The coffee was really starting to wear off. Or maybe that was just the adrenaline, now that Langly was awake and talking.  
  
"I just want you to know that still weirds me out." Chaz blinked. "I will never be over that."  
  
"You think that now, but you get used to it," Garcia told him. "Okay, I'll just assume we can pay for all this. Sizes? Cut and colour preferences? What am I looking for, boys?"  
  
After a few minutes of back and forth, Langly and Garcia came to some conclusions, and Langly nudged Reid. "Give her the number you remember. I can't remember shit right now."  
  
"Most of the stuff that's not the last day should come back after you've eaten and slept," Chaz assured him. "It's the stress."  
  
"Glasses!" Langly yelped, in the middle of Reid's recitation. "Wait! Glasses! Tell me I can at least get a pair of cheaters, but I have to be able to see, because Fed One's too tired to drive and Fed Two doesn't know where we're going."  
  
"You _think_ you're going to drive." Garcia sounded unconvinced.  
  
"Fuck you, I can drive fine. I just need to be able to read the street signs."  
  
Chaz made an agonised sound. "Please just let me drive. The only reason I don't know where you live is that I'm too polite. Whatever you're worried about, you need to be aware that I'm regularly in close proximity to three people who know, and one of those people is _you_ , so if I wanted to, I would know. It's a little fucking late to be worried about _me_."  
  
"Shit." Langly pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. "Fine. Fed Two is driving. Whiskey's going to kill me. Tell him we're coming home?"


	17. Chapter 17

"You brought another fed," Frohike complained, over the intercom, as Byers made his way down to let them in.  
  
"Hey, fuck you, I brought the psychic fed who made the excellent point that it's impossible to keep secrets from him _anyway_ ," Langly argued.  
  
"I don't do it by accident. I'm house trained. I promise." Chaz sighed as the loading dock door started to roll up. "But, nobody's letting Frank drive after what he's just been through and Agent Reid just passed out from the stress. We had to get _out_ before things got any more exciting."  
  
"Great. Just great. Federal fucking cryptid in my house. Nothing personal, Villette. Pull the damn car in before you get picked up by a satellite." Frohike clicked off, leaving the rest of the argument to Byers, who didn't appear until after the outer door had closed.  
  
Langly got out of the car, first, looking like he'd taken a rough trip down a flight of stairs.  
  
"That is... not what you left the house wearing," Byers observed, pistol still aimed at the car. "Close, but..."  
  
"Yeah, a funny thing happened on the way back from the raid. Maybe you heard about it." Langly held onto the car for balance. "You want to stop pointing that at Reid and Villette, so somebody can help me up the god damn stairs?"  
  
"Langly, do you swear to me--"  
  
"I'm about to start swearing _at_ you," Langly snapped, which wasn't the distress signal, and he watched Byers thumb the safety back on and holster the gun.  
  
"Oh my god, you're alive." Without the concerns about who'd just come in, Byers started shaking with relief. "You-- you're really back. You're home. You're here, and you're standing up and talking."  
  
"I'm about to stop standing up," Langly muttered, leaning heavily on the car.  
  
Chaz slowly opened the car door, watching Byers the whole time, as he folded himself out. "He needs to be mostly horizontal, and we need to feed him."  
  
Byers looked at the car, waiting for Reid to get out of it. "Is Dr Reid--"  
  
"Caffeine crash," Langly breathed, as Chaz put an arm around him, steadying him.  
  
"He could probably sleep through a shuttle launch, right now. I think the last coherent thing he said was when he looked at Frank and went 'you're shiny'." Chaz turned Langly toward him, hoisting him over one shoulder.  
  
"Christ! Warn a guy, would you?" Langly choked out, clutching at Chaz's shirt with both hands.  
  
Byers's eyes landed on Langly's leather-clad ass and stayed there, as he blinked slowly. "He's not wrong. Dr Reid, I mean. That is... definitely shiny."  
  
"But a pale reflection of the true glory beneath, or so I've been told, at length, after a few drinks." Chaz shrugged his unoccupied shoulder and gave Byers the most innocent look he could muster. "I can only carry one of them at a time. Where do I put Frank?"  
  
"I'll show you the way. Is it... do you think Dr Reid will be all right for a few minutes?" Byers remembered having gone through the same files Langly had, when Reid was still new to them. Waking up in the back seat of a car in a not-immediately-recognisable location might not be the best thing for him.  
  
"I think he'd sleep through California sinking into the ocean, if he was in the middle of San Francisco. He's out." Langly tried to get a look at Byers, around Chaz's elbow. "I'm gonna barf if I don't stop being upside down. Just in case you were wondering. That's a thing that happens."  
  
"It's been years! You might've gotten over that!" Byers protested.  
  
Langly swallowed. "I didn't."  
  
"Right! Upstairs. Follow me." Byers turned around and led the way into the passage with the stairs.

* * *

Langly was curled up in bed with his laptop, a case of Jolt, and a box of Twinkies, when Chaz poured Reid into the bed next to him. "This is much better than a hospital," he decided, with a small smile.  
  
"Do me a favour and don't die. I have to go explain things to your friends, because right now, you need to eat and he needs to sleep."  
  
"I'm surprised Byers is letting you wander around unaccompanied."  
  
"Byers is doing no such thing," Byers replied from just outside the door.  
  
"You should feed _him_ , too!" Langly raised his voice to make sure Byers wouldn't be able to argue about whether he'd said it, later. "I'm not really sure how he's still standing up!"  
  
"Raw willpower," Chaz joked, looking longingly at the bed.  
  
"Yes, I'll let you sleep in it. Go unfuck things, and tell Frohike he can pick that fight with me, if he wants to, but you're an innocent bystander that I hijacked for my own benefit."  
  
"Innocent bystander? _Me?_ "  
  
"For once."  
  
"All right, I'll be back in a bit. Seriously, though, don't die." Chaz slipped out of the room and pulled the door shut behind him, having second, third, and fourth thoughts about things Langly had said about being rich and invisible. The bedroom was huge. He thought it might be the size of his last apartment. But, he supposed if he were going to spend fifteen years indoors, he'd want something bigger, too. And the bed put his own to shame, which was saying something.  
  
"We've put a lot of effort into making this feel like home," Byers said, noticing the way Chaz silently studied everything they passed. "It's really-- It's inaccurate to say it's all we have, but most of the time it feels like it."  
  
"As far as enormous mansions of the nouveau riche go, it's not bad. I think my entire condo would fit in your living room." Chaz turned around to take in the whole room.  
  
"It probably would. We had a large settlement, after the ... shark thing, and we needed to disappear."  
  
"So you came right back to where it started." Chaz smiled as he figured out the rest of that line of thought. "Because no one ever looks up, but they very rarely look right under their noses, either. They thought you'd run, and you didn't."  
  
"You understand, and that's a first." Byers looked a little surprised as they came into the kitchen and Chaz's stomach put in a loud complaint.  
  
"I finally get to see the legendary kitchen and it absolutely lives up to the hype. This is _incredible_. I could spend the rest of my life in this kitchen and not have the least regret." Chaz held himself back, gazing longingly at the endless spread of cupboards and counterspace, the appliances, the perfect lighting and tiled everything.  
  
"Frohike wanted something posh. Langly wanted something practical. I just wanted a toaster and a coffee maker. I really sat this one out." Byers shrugged and looked again at his kitchen, as if seeing it for the first time. "Right. I was supposed to get you something to eat."  
  
"Please. Is Frohike joining us, or will he be somewhere invisible with a sniper rifle, until I prove I'm not a threat?"  
  
Byers laughed, but Chaz didn't.  
  
"I mean, I am a threat. Not intentionally, by any means, but I know exactly what I am and what that could cost you. I'm not really in a position to take offence." Chaz did his best to look like he wouldn't be better off lying down, Reid's dreams still flowing through the back of his mind, and that was something he was going to have to figure out. That didn't fit his mythology, as he'd come to understand it, as he'd come to enjoy it. There was less pressure, even in crowds, if he only had to worry about people he could see. But, now, he didn't have to see Reid, Reid didn't have to be awake, and they didn't seem to have to be particularly close together. He wondered how far that would stretch. He wondered more if that would work with anyone else, but he really didn't want to find out. At least the dreams were good, for now.  
  
"We know what you are. And, again, thank you for your help with Holly. We'd have gone in, anyway, but I feel like we might have been less effective without the help." Byers pulled out a chair at the nearer end of the massive table, across from the wall of maps and several piles of paper, gesturing for Chaz to sit. "He'll join us when he's ready."  
  
"I don't want to have to tell this story twice." Chaz sat, gratefully, feeling just a little better as he stopped focusing on standing. He knew he should let go of Reid, stop wasting calories on the connection, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. They'd been through a lot, in the last few days, and just maybe if he was awake, he could hold off the nightmares. They hadn't tried that, yet, but they were also usually sleeping close to the same times.  
  
"You won't have to," Byers assured him, crossing the room to open the fridge. "Sticking to things I can microwave, I've got the stuffed bread Langly likes, half a pot roast from yesterday, instant udon in mushroom flavour..." He moved to the pantry. "Instant mashed potatoes, chilli, chicken noodle soup, whatever the hell soup mix of Langly's that is..."  
  
"Pot roast and potatoes sounds great." Chaz paused awkwardly. "You, er... I'm..."  
  
"You eat like he does. I know." Byers tossed a box of cupcakes across the kitchen. "Start with that. Langly owes me a can of raspberries anyway, he can spare you some cupcakes."

* * *

Reid woke slowly, surrounded by the smell of Langly, with a faint undertone of leather. With a small, curious sound, he wrapped an arm around Langly's leg and buried his face against Langly's hip. The smell of leather intensified.  
  
Langly took a hand off the keyboard to run his fingers through Reid's hair. "You awake?"  
  
Reid made an inquisitive noise, still trying to get his brain to turn on, and pressed a kiss to what he finally realised wasn't skin under his cheek. "You wearing leather?"  
  
"You're still dressed, too," Langly pointed out. "You were asleep, and I'm probably going to need some help getting out of this."  
  
Reid tried to remember what the hell he was doing passed out in his clothes, in Langly's bed. Suddenly, it all came back to him, and he sat up so fast Langly nearly didn't get the laptop out of the way of his head. "The hospital! You-- You're okay. This is your room, and I don't remember getting here, but I remember we were coming back here. I can't believe you got Garcia to buy you leather pants."  
  
"Hey, I was replacing the ones I'd _been_ wearing, that I suddenly _wasn't_." Langly huffed and stuck the laptop on the nightstand, tossing his shitty backup glasses after it. His eyes ached and his head felt like he'd been punched in the temples a few times. "And you're still dressed because Villette had to carry you up from the car. We got like two blocks from the hospital and you just passed out."  
  
"It's Thursday. I think I've had about five hours of sleep since I got up on Monday. More now, but..." Reid yawned and blinked a few times. "Still a little tired."  
  
"You shot three people _in the knee_ on Wednesday. Reports say you only fired three bullets. You're telling me you did that on five hours of sleep since _Monday_?" Langly eyed Reid uncertainly.  
  
"If it helps, I think that was Chaz. I mean, it was my gun, it was my hand, it was probably my intention, but I think it was his reflexes, not mine. I think that's a thing we can do. If it's not, then, yes. That was me, and I was just that done with the entire situation. I spent Monday night stuck in an unheated cabin in an artificial blizzard, waiting for someone to show up and try to kill me, and by the time I got home on Wednesday, you'd been abducted. I just... I may have misplaced my reason and better judgement for a few hours."  
  
"You _what_ on Monday night?"  
  
"Oh. Right. We didn't tell you because Fitzgerald." Reid sighed and laid back down, fumbling with the buttons on the scrub top. "We went to recover a body and process the scene, except there was no body. Took us long enough to figure out what was going on that the killer brought the storm in on top of us, and we couldn't get back down the mountain. Luckily, we're both pretty smart, so we didn't freeze to death. The storm broke when the killer misjudged her limits and died, which brings me to the part where I really hope you've been eating."  
  
Langly held up the empty box of Twinkies. "I'm fine. Just a little sore." Tossing the box on the floor, he eyed Reid appreciatively. "You want some help with that?"  
  
"Why do I feel like your help is going to involve more groping than actual assistance?"  
  
"Because you forget that the groping gets much more rewarding if I get you naked, first." Langly batted Reid's shaking hands away from the last few buttons. "You really are tired, aren't you?"  
  
Reid's hands steadied somewhat once he put them on Langly. "I'm just really glad you're alive. I just-- I couldn't do it again."  
  
"To my lasting surprise, it takes more than that to kill me, and now I'm _pissed off_. Give me a day to get my head on, and somebody's gonna suffer for this. Spontaneous divorces, repossessed cars, non-stop robocalls. House in the Hamptons? Not any more. I am going to demonstrate the correct application of torture."  
  
"Or you could just let me arrest them." Reid sat up just enough for Langly to slide the shirt off him.  
  
"We both know you can't, because the wheels of justice turn slowly or whatever the hell that line is. I don't have to wait. There is nothing stopping me from ruining lives, except a killer headache. The assholes taken out of that building have already been identified--"  
  
"You're not supposed to be--"  
  
"I didn't. Hafs sent it."

* * *

"You've seen the damage I can do," Chaz said, halfway through a third plate of pot roast and potatoes. "So, what happened in that building isn't a surprise."  
  
"Like my daughter," Byers said, nodding.  
  
"No, what's a surprise is this." Frohike appeared from the other end of the kitchen, waving a stack of papers. "You're sleeping with Langly? Does Reid know?"  
  
"I'm... _what_? Says _who_?" Chaz stared, stunned. Of course he was. And of course Reid knew. But, if Langly hadn't told them, he wasn't going to.  
  
"Says Langly." Frohike dropped the pages next to Chaz's plate.  
  
Chaz put down his fork and read a few lines, before he started laughing. "'Fucks like a demon'? I'm flattered, but I'm not getting it on a t-shirt. People say all kinds of weird shit under torture. It's why it's not considered a reliable method of interrogation." He flipped through the stack. "Given what he says about other people, I think he just latched on to sex as a means not to say anything too important. Look at what he says about Fitz! And that he manages to maintain the line between Fitz and Byers..."  
  
Byers reddened a bit and tried not to look guilty, but it was a lost cause.  
  
"Peace offering," Chaz declared, reaching behind himself with one hand to produce the folder Frost had given him. He set it on top of the transcripts. "I know the medical examiner who signed off on your deaths. When she saw Langly, she recognised him, and came to warn me. She knows what he is -- suspected it for a long time. Actually, she suspected all three of you might be anomalous."  
  
"I thought that witch was going to kill us, because we weren't dead." Frohike shuddered. "You _know_ her?"  
  
"She specialises in exotic methods of death, which means a lot of her cases become my cases. I like her, but you're ... not that far off in your assessment of her."  
  
"She's like you?" Byers asked, pleased the subject had changed.  
  
"No, but I've never doubted her ability and willingness to remorselessly murder someone under the correct set of circumstances. I've also seen her try to save lives, but as noted, she's a medical examiner, and her skills are better suited to the dead." Chaz tapped the folder. "There are no official records, but this is what's left. I don't understand all of it, but I think you might. Langly hasn't seen it yet -- he was still in a coma, at the time."  
  
"That was really a coma, then?" Byers asked, picking up the folder and opening it.  
  
"Completely unresponsive to all stimulus for nearly ten hours. Brief, but absolutely a coma. He burned himself out pretty badly doing some things he'd never done before, and back to back, from the look of it. He's really flexing the limits of what he thinks he should be able to do, which is harder than it sounds."  
  
"That sounds exactly like Langly." Frohike nodded. "Is that my pot roast?"  
  
Chaz looked at his plate and then smiled awkwardly at Frohike.  
  
"That _was_ your pot roast. Now, it's keeping Agent Villette sitting up, so he can explain what happened." Byers firmly pulled out another chair and stared at Frohike until he sat. "We only have the recordings Langly sent to Agent Gates and the official reports. We'd like some clarification on a few points."  
  
"I may not have it." Chaz shook his head and went back to eating. "I showed up late and left early."  
  
"You've already explained the bizarre reports of what happened to Helmsman's people, but there's very little about the rest of what happened there. And I'm curious about the room in which Langly was being held. The circuit diagrams are incomplete, but suggestive."  
  
"Circuit diagrams?" Chaz blinked in confusion.  
  
"They're in the recordings. Part of the transcript. Langly, the god damn idiot, couldn't figure out how to send the images so he sent ninety-six hundred baud modem tones as audio, and I had to dig something up to put them back together." Frohike shook his head. "He has to do everything the hard way."  
  
"His eyes were taped shut," Chaz pointed out. "Which means he wasn't even looking at those, he was generating them from what he could ... I'm still not clear on what he did in there, other than that Hafidha's impressed."  
  
"Oh." Byers blinked and traded the folder for the transcripts, flipping through until he found a diagram. "No, that makes sense. He's following the current back from the table, which is plugged in to a dryer outlet... here's the juncture for that room, and then he comes back into a few things before deciding they're not what he's looking for -- this looks like lights, that's ... not a door, but it works like a door, this is the door. It's incomplete because it's only what he _found_."  
  
"This is great, but I still want the whole story." Frohike eyed Chaz suspiciously.  
  
Something in Chaz's eyes changed, some subtle light went out and his gaze sharpened. "I can give you everything I know with the exception of about two minutes inside the warehouse."  
  
"Two minutes? What are you cov--"  
  
"There are things the human mind is not designed to handle, and it took me _months_ to learn to handle even one at a time, _years_ before it was possible to do what I did in that room. Nothing happened in those two minutes that was so important that you need that experience. I'm not interested in doing that kind of damage to your mind."  
  
"What, exactly, are you offering?" Byers studied Chaz, now very curious.  
  
"I can give you my memories of the events in question. It's probably faster than explaining. You'll have more details. You'll know _everything I know_ about what happened. I'm also leaving out the part where I took a nap in the hospital." He'd also be leaving out his incidental thoughts about Langly that might imply they were, in fact, sleeping together.  
  
Byers licked his lips and asked the question no one expected. "Is this something you could teach Allie to do?"  
  
Chaz rocked back in surprise. "I don't know. I don't think so, and the changes in her mythology that would make it possible may not be wise choices. Depending on her mind and her understanding, whether or not the changes are wise, they may not be possible at all. But, the decision to try is hers and then _mine_."  
  
"I understand that. I was just... hoping to understand _her_ better. I know the two of you are alike, but not the same, so when you say you can do something..."  
  
Chaz smiled and nodded. "If I can do it, can she do it?"  
  
Byers nodded back. "Exactly." He took a breath. "I'll take what you're offering. Frohike?"  
  
"I don't know about that kind of fucking around with my brain. I think I'm gonna sit this one out."  
  
"Langly's the same way about it. I can't say I blame him. It's unsettling, at best." Chaz tried to settle himself with the idea of passing on his memories like this. He knew he could do it -- he did it with Reid, regularly. But, there was a certain intimacy to it. And it was a borrowed power, however much he'd made it his own. It wasn't _his_ mythology, and it sat a little sideways in his head, like a shard of broken glass. But, he could use it. He could reflect what had been done to him, the power that had created him, changed him. And that was how he'd come to it, in the first place.  
  
"I'll think I was there, won't I?" Byers asked, trying to prepare himself.  
  
"No, more like a really vivid dream. You'll know you weren't there -- there's a distance in it --  but you'll still have the sensations of having been there. I think a dream's really the best way to describe it." Not that he couldn't take the distance out, but he built it in on purpose. It was a layer of protection for both of them.  
  
Byers nodded again. "Okay, what do I have to do?"  
  
"Just sit there and look at me. It'll be over in a few minutes."


	18. Chapter 18

"I'm so glad you're alive," Reid said, for what must have been the twentieth time, as Langly tucked another kiss under his chin.  
  
Untangling himself from Reid and the blankets, Langly pulled back enough to see Reid's eyes. "You want me to show you how alive I am?"  
  
"Are you sure that's a good idea? I don't want you to push yourself too far..." Reid reached up and tucked Langly's hair behind his ear.  
  
"I'm hard. You love me. I want you. And god, I am so fucking hard, did I say that already?" Langly offered an awkward smile. "I mean, if you're too tired..."  
  
"I might fall asleep, but I think we've established that's not really a bar to both of us having a good time." Reid rubbed his foot against the back of Langly's leg. "So, if you're sure you're up for it, show me you're still alive. I want you inside me. I want you so deep I can feel your pulse in my bones. I want to feel you sweat and pant and kiss me -- bite me! Put a mark on me that will be there tomorrow. Prove to me that you're alive. Show me I'm not dreaming."  
  
Langly looked down in awe. "You mean that?"  
  
"Every word."  
  
"It's going to be impossible to forget how alive I am, all day, tomorrow," Langly promised, almost close enough to kiss. "You'll feel me from the minute you wake up until you're back in this bed paying me back for all of it. I hope you don't have any long meetings..."  
  
Reid made a beautifully incoherent sound and closed the bare breath's space between them to press his lips to Langly's. There was nowhere else he wanted to be. Nothing would ever feel as good as this moment, both of them alive and almost well. "Take me. Make me forget I was afraid."  
  
"As you wish," Langly breathed, in that moment not quite sure how he meant it.

* * *

Byers looked like he'd been poleaxed, and Chaz didn't look much better.  
  
"Filters might've gotten a little sloppy near the end. Sorry for anything you really didn't need to know." Chaz stared at the table until the shapes on it resolved into recognisable objects. He picked up the sugar and topped off half a cup of coffee with it, stirring just enough to make sure it was all damp and sludgy before he poured it down his throat.  
  
"What did you do to your shoulder?" Byers asked, grabbing on to the least upsetting thing he could get his brain around.  
  
"Someone else did it, a long time ago, and I'm not talking about it. It's just like that, now. You get used to it." Chaz paused, running that back through his head. "I'm used to it. How'd you notice?"  
  
"It's really jarring, if you're not expecting it." Byers slowly stretched his own arm, feeling the full range of smooth motion. "And... there's no record of you firing any shots. All the bullets fired at kneecaps are accounted for -- they came from Dr Reid's gun. How is it that you shot someone, just before the cut for my mental health?"  
  
"I didn't."  
  
"The hell you didn't. I can see it happen. Sleeve, gun, you shoot him in the knee," Byers insisted.  
  
"I didn't shoot him. Agent Reid shot him." Chaz shook his head, hoping he looked like he had no idea how that misconception could've happened. "I saw him, but Agent Reid was faster."  
  
Frohike finally opened his mouth. "I can tell you're full of shit. I just can't figure out why or _how_."  
  
"It's right before the cutoff. I probably picked up Agent Reid, before I got to everyone else in the room." Chaz shrugged, hoping that would be enough. "But, that was absolutely his shot, not mine."  
  
"You remember his shot from his perspective, so now I remember his shot from his perspective, except it looks like yours..." Byers warily tried the concept on for size.  
  
"Like I said, I know I'm dangerous, and I'm sorry if the filters didn't catch everything. I think he may show up in a few more places, where I was trying to determine what we were up against. I reach out and I get _everything_. I don't always notice Agent Reid, because I'm expecting him to be there, if that makes sense."  
  
Frohike nodded. "He's what you don't have to worry about. Safe to ignore."  
  
"He's terrified," Byers observed, sympathetically. "I mean, we were all terrified, but..."  
  
"He's in love." Chaz shrugged off the obvious path between those points.  
  
Byers thought of Susanne, remembered that fear that drove him forward, the desire that pushed him when the fear flagged. And that really _was_ it. He recognised it, once Agent Villette pointed it out. But, for Reid, that fear felt a lot more justified, a lot more well-founded, and Byers hoped he never accidentally learned _why_. He was curious, but curious enough to ask, not to blindly take it in like vodka at the kind of parties he didn't get invited to in college.  
  
"He's an _idiot_ ," Frohike muttered.  
  
"You really care about them." Byers licked the roof of his mouth a few times, as if trying to unstick peanut butter, stretched his fingers as if pulling them out of something sticky. "It's thick. Liquid. In everything. You're angry because they're hurting, and they're _yours_."  
  
"They're my friends, Mr Byers. Of course I'm angry. They're good people and they don't deserve any of this shit, except for the part where Langly absolutely picked this fight, and I'm going to help him finish it."  
  
"It's _my_ fight. _I_ started this fight," Byers reminded him, suddenly sick with the thought this was his fault. "Here's hoping we get thirty more years out of both of them, despite it."

* * *

"Harder," Reid begged, breathless, one hand pressed flat against the headboard not to slam his head against it with each thrust, the other hand clenched around Langly's wrist above the hand holding his hip. "Harder, please just--" A long, low moan spilled out of him. "Right there-- _Please_ , right there!"  
  
Langly had no idea how he was still going, but if Reid was going to plead for more, he'd give until he couldn't. It still bothered him a little. Something wasn't quite right. Probably the fact he'd spent half a day in a coma, if he was honest. Not that taking more than a minute and a half to get off could really be considered a problem, in most cases, but he knew how his body worked and this wasn't it.  
  
But, there were better things to focus on, like the way Reid arched under him, eyes rolled back, panting and shivering, and then dropped back from the edge, wild-eyed and still demanding. He moved the hand he could, running the backs of his fingers along Reid's dick, and got slapped away.  
  
"No. Just like this." Reid licked his lips and tried to catch his breath. "So close... So, so close... But, you feel so good. I don't want this to be over."  
  
"You could always try for two." Langly smiled slyly and rolled his hips, watching Reid's eyelids flutter, the ripple of tension down his sides that eventually turned into a tight squeeze inside.  
  
A small, desperate sound broke against the back of Reid's lips before he tried words again. "Lean just a little for-- _Oh, god, yes, Langly, please!_ There! _Right there!_ Oh, _please_! Harder! _Harder!_ Yes!"

* * *

Outside the door, Chaz suddenly leaned hard against the wall, dizzy and panting, his head full of the lush bloom of Reid's lust. He could feel Langly between their legs, short thrusts just enough motion to drive them both wild, the pressure behind his balls of Langly's pelvic arch slamming into Reid's soft bits -- and oh, _that's_ what was right there. Oh, shit, he was _not_ going to-- He shuddered and tried to keep himself together just a little longer. He just had to make it through the door, but Byers was right behind him, and he didn't dare open the door on _that_. Reid would _kill him_.  
  
"You all right, Agent Villette?" Byers asked, putting a hand on Chaz's shoulder.  
  
"I'm _great_." Chaz took a few deep breaths and tried again. "I'm just _really tired_. I've only had a few more hours than Agent Reid."  
  
Agent Reid, who was getting railed about fifteen feet away. Maybe he _would_ ask Langly about the insulation, because that was a _lot_ quieter out here than it was in there. As Reid's howl of frustrated desire rang through his skull, Chaz realised it was _his_ fault Reid hadn't come. He could let go. He should let go. But, he really didn't want to let go. Not until he had his eyes on Reid, again. His hands... And then there would be no point in letting go, so why bother?  
  
He just had to make it through the door.  
  
"Do you need some help getting to--"  
  
"Nope!" Chaz pulled himself upright, taking in the angles of the hall, trying to figure out if he'd have to adjust Byers's memory or just bend reality a little. "I'm sure I can make it to the corner of the bed I've been offered. Thanks, though!"  
  
Craft the image. Write himself into it. His own face kept slipping away from him. A scene in which he just opened the door, thanked Byers, walked in, and closed it. A scene in which, behind the door, Reid and Langly were asleep.  
  
"I'm just going to ... go sleep, before this gets..." Chaz shrugged and put a hand on the doorknob. A gentle push.  
  
Byers smiled. "They're passed out, aren't they. Good. I know Langly needs the sleep. Come get me if he wakes up screaming."  
  
Chaz shook Byers's hand. "I will, thanks."  
  
Open the door. Don't drop the image. _Don't drop the image._ Smile at Byers. Close the door.  
  
Chaz slid down the inside of the door, gasping for breath, as Reid finally came. It was _so good_ \-- sweet and hot and... the warm, wet splash across his face, Reid's face, _their_ face. Confused frustration, and Chaz shoved that down, drew Reid back toward the overwhelming pleasure.  
  
Langly heard the door click shut, under Reid's desperate, wordless demands for more, and glanced over his shoulder, spotting Chaz sitting on the floor, dazed. He must've walked right into that, and Langly had no regrets, as he turned his attention back to the body beneath him, to the slow drip down the side of Reid's face. God, that looked good.  
  
"You want me to stop?"  
  
Reid looked uncertain, little sounds still jarred out of him with every thrust, but no words.  
  
Chaz answered for him, having pulled himself shakily up and staggered toward the bed. "Don't stop. _Please_ , don't stop. I'll take care of this."  
  
He grabbed Langly's shirt from the floor and sat a little harder than he'd meant to on the edge of the bed, gently wiping Reid's face. Reid kissed his knuckles, gratefully. They didn't need words. They barely needed to touch. He was going to need to seriously reconsider his caloric requirements if he meant to keep this up, the way they'd been going, the last few days. Ever since the first pizza after the mountain, they'd been wrapped up in each other, nearly a single mind. He shouldn't have wanted this. He shouldn't have enjoyed this. But, the simple trust felt so good. The shameless acceptance and mild curiosity were the best thing he'd ever been offered, and he kept waiting for Reid to come to his senses.  
  
But, Reid was beyond sense, now -- post-orgasmic and loose, letting Langly fuck him what must be raw, by now. And that was interesting. Chaz glanced at Langly, looking for the ring, but didn't see it. Just the bottom of an unexpected condom. If there was something he knew by now, it was that Langly _didn't_ , with Reid. But, even with him, that wasn't enough to make this kind of difference.  
  
Chaz stared until he caught Langly's eye, glanced down and looked back up inquisitively.  
  
Langly rolled his eyes and offered a half-shrug.  
  
"You want some help with that?" Chaz offered, willing to let Langly define the nature of the 'help'.  
  
Langly's eyes gleamed, the corners of his mouth curling up. "Reid? You feeling a little bendy?"  
  
Chaz batted a few possibilities in Reid's direction.  
  
Reid licked his lip and caught it in his teeth, eyes drifting closed as he tried to focus enough to find words. "More lube."  
  
Chaz fished it out of the drawer and handed the bottle to Langly, leaning down to kiss Reid, feeling the demands of Reid's utterly desperate and confused libido smacking against the inside of his skull like a bird against a window. Reid's body wasn't quite sure what to do with the fact that he'd come and Langly wasn't stopping, but it was mostly sure it wanted more, even as his mind struggled to sort the sensations into some coherent idea of what was happening and whether he liked it. Chaz offered to stop -- just a gentle withdrawal, an inquisitive note -- and Reid's vehement decline sliced across the back of his eyes, ragged and demanding, draped in tattered lust.  
  
Simple enough, then.  
  
Reid's hands pulled at Chaz's clothes, and he slid up the bed that last few inches and slammed his head.  
  
Chaz recoiled from the impact, too scrambled not to. "You take care of yourself. Let me worry about my shirt. You'll have everything you want soon enough."  
  
Shoving himself back down from the headboard, Reid made a sound of strained frustration, the lingering sensation of the impact cold under his skin, even as Langly's body warmed his thighs.  
  
If there was something Chaz was good at, it was getting out of his clothes when he was too tired to remember what he was wearing, and this was close enough to count. Reid was _distracting_. Not so distracting that he couldn't nudge Langly into a better position, folding Reid nearly in half, and get himself and another condom into position, behind Langly. The burns from the electrodes stood out against Langly's pale skin. Not even serious burns, almost like little, round scrapes. A little red, a little cruddy. Still enough to give Chaz pause and a flash of his own back, as Reid had seen it.  
  
Nothing to worry about, he reminded himself, because he couldn't touch Langly's back anyway. It was Langly, and Chaz had no idea why he'd even bothered taking off his shirt, which was an unusual decision, for Langly, but not completely unheard of. Probably scraped the shit out of the not-quite-scabs. He could remember that feeling against much more serious wounds, and ... yeah, that was definitely a reason.  
  
"You want me?" he asked, taking nothing for granted. Doubly after everything Langly'd just been through.  
  
"No, I just bent over so you could appreciate the angle." Langly huffed. "Of course I want you. Are you going to fuck me or are you just going to stand there and stare?"  
  
"Just appreciating that you're still here to say that to me," Chaz assured him, running his fingers along Reid's leg and then laying that hand across Langly's belly to still him long enough to push into.  
  
Langly tipped his head down and swore. "I want it. I want it, but it's not enough."  
  
"I know it's not your thing, but if you think it'll help, I can share the rest of this with you."  
  
Reid was suddenly paying attention, looking curiously up at Langly, even as his nerves twinged at the loss of motion.  
  
"Fuck me," Langly decided. "Fuck me, and if I can't... I'll think about it."  
  
And that was when Reid realised it was a problem, and not just an unexpectedly pleasant surprise. But, they'd been through this before -- _he'd_ been through this. They'd figure it out.  
  
Chaz started slow, sweet and hard, littering kisses along Langly's shoulders and neck. He pulled Reid's perception back to him, timing his thrusts perfectly, easing Reid ever closer to another orgasm, even as he chased his first and Langly's first. And that was ... really he should've been more surprised Langly was up for this at all, after everything, but it was Langly. Of course he was.  
  
Reid could feel the heat coiling between his hips, pouring up along his nerves until he could feel it in his neck, tendrils of pleasure teasing his tongue. Langly was inside him and he was inside Langly -- or ... Chaz was inside Langly, but Reid wasn't sure the distinction mattered any more, or at least not now, not like this, not with Langly's tight, hard body pressed between them, surrounded by them, desired and claimed by them.  
  
Between them, Langly shuddered, dripping with sweat, so close and yet so damn far, like those stupid plastic packages for scissors that you need scissors to open. God, it was good, though. Starting to get a little rough around the edges, but still good. They weren't going to last much longer, he could tell, with the nearly-identical sounds from both their mouths, and the way Reid's breathing had become short little pants and gasps. There was a decision here, and if he was going to make it, it had to be soon. It had to be now.  
  
"I want it. Do it. I want to see."  
  
"You sure?" Chaz panted against the spit-slick back of Langly's shoulder.  
  
 _No_ , Langly thought.  
  
"Yes," he said.  
  
Chaz canted a corner of the mirror toward Langly, realising that whatever he'd been using to maintain the connection with Reid had become a permanent fixture, separate and uncovered, if still a bit cloudy. Frustration and desire broke across him, as Langly came into focus, a dull ache, low-grade panic. Calm, first. He pushed back calm and warm, then a taste of his own lust, the wholly sincere desire to lay Langly down and fuck the daylights out of him until neither of them could move.  
  
That got a change in Langly, as he put more of his weight on Reid, leaning down to press his face against Reid's neck as his hips canted up, muscles tensing at the very thought of what Chaz was proposing. And then the rest of it washed over him as Chaz did... something. All three of them were together. He could feel every surface as if it were part of his own body but his own body had never felt like that. Was that how other people felt? Was any of this in any way representative? Did he, in this moment, give a rat's ass?  
  
Not so much.  
  
God, Reid _did_ love him. Ached for him. Burned for him. Took him in with the simple desire to revel in his presence, in his body. But, where Reid was like an oasis amid fire and thorns, Chaz was nearly invisible. Faceless, but desirous. Lusty. Hungry. Hollow like something that could never be filled, but ready and willing to fuck until it took the edge off.  
  
They wanted him, pushed and pulled him between them, gave themselves to him in the hope of something more. And now, he was part of them, of both of them, and he entirely understood the appeal.  
  
Reid was the first over, hands tangled in Langly's hair, lips pressed against Langly's lips, and the rush pulled Chaz down with him, panting and shuddering. And something in Langly twisted open in the blinding wash of pleasure from both sides, and he couldn't remember anything but the feel of warm skin against him, filling and being filled.


	19. Chapter 19

"That was so incredibly, mind-blowingly hot, and I _never_ want to do it again."  
  
Langly was once again self-contained, with the correct number of limbs and all the parts of his body where he expected them to be. The memories of being more still flickered in his mind, beautiful, even as they were terrifying and grotesque, and he curled closer under Reid's chin, hoping there were no circumstances under which any part of the last two days would be repeated. Except maybe this one -- he liked when Reid held him, as much as he wished it were less cautiously.  
  
"Oh, good." Chaz laughed, eyeing Langly's back and looking at Reid, over his shoulder. "You're great, but... that's..." He paused, trying to find a way to say it that wouldn't be offensive.  
  
Langly looked over his shoulder. "He's easier. He wants it."  
  
"Something like that." Chaz let the subject drop, gratefully. Langly was, if nothing else, very much what he'd become accustomed to in other people's minds, structurally. Which was probably a good thing -- he was relatively sure people were meant to work like that. He used it well, but it was still vivid and uncontrolled, and Chaz now knew more about Langly's taste in porn than he ever wanted to, although it would make for some interesting conversations, if the subject ever came up. He preferred Reid's clarity and focus, in general, as inhuman as he found it.  
  
Reid's hand spread across the back of Langly's shoulder, hesitantly drawing him closer, trying not to touch too much, and Langly jumped anyway.  
  
"Ow, shit!"  
  
The hands left his skin instantly, and a whole conversation took place over his shoulder in a single glance.  
  
"I'll do something about that, if you'll let me," Chaz offered, sitting up.  
  
"Bandages are in the--"  
  
"Bathroom, under the sink. I know."  
  
"Didn't I just tell you to stay out of my head?" Langly snapped.  
  
"That wasn't you; that was Spencer."  
  
"Right... right." Langly rested his forehead on Reid's shoulder and sighed.  
  
"You all right?" Reid asked, as Chaz got up to get something for Langly's back.  
  
"No," Langly muttered.  
  
"It's going to be like that for a while."  
  
"I know."  
  
"If there's anything at all--"  
  
Langly reached down and pulled Reid's leg across his thigh. "Just don't put your foot on me. Those go all the way down."  
  
"I know. I took them off you."  
  
"Right." Langly sighed and ducked back under Reid's chin. "Right."  
  
"Tired, aren't you?"  
  
"Exhausted."  
  
"You're safe. Right now, you're safe." Reid rested a hand on the side of Langly's hip, where he knew the skin was undamaged. "I remember listening to you explain this place to Garcia. You're home, and this is probably the safest place I've ever been, including several federal facilities, so really, this is the time to get some sleep."  
  
"You're here." Langly shifted uncomfortably. "You're here, but..."  
  
"You're thinking really loud and I'm trying very hard not to hear you." Chaz returned from the bathroom with selections from the extraordinary collection of first aid supplies, and settled in behind Langly. "I'm usually a little better at this, but I'm tired, you're tired, and I was just in your head."  
  
"Byers," Langly said, pressing his face against Reid's chest.  
  
Chaz blinked, cutting squares of bandage. "I am not."  
  
"It's usually Byers, not me." Reid picked it up instantly. "Do you want me to get him?"  
  
"No." Langly paused. "Not yet."  
  
"Yes, but you'd rather be wearing pants," Chaz guessed.  
  
"I'm sorry," Langly breathed, the words almost lost in the sound of tape peeling.  
  
"There are a lot of things you can be, right now, but I'm pretty sure sorry about that isn't one of them." Chaz counted electrode marks and then the cut bandages, making sure he hadn't missed one in that sudden flash of stupidity.  
  
"You love him. You should be with people you love. He's been part of your life for thirty years." Reid kissed the top of Langly's head. "What are you sorry about? If you want him here, I'll go tell him. I think the iceberg that sank the Titanic is smaller than your bed. I'm pretty sure he'll fit."  
  
Chaz was mostly disconnected, finally... mostly... because he'd eaten, but not really enough. Not with the week he was having. But, he wasn't sure he even needed the mirror to pick up the unconditional acceptance rolling off of Reid. The mirror gave him what was just under that, and he'd never cease to be amazed at how calculating Reid really was, in all things. Even as the words came out of his mouth, Reid was working on how to make himself comfortable sharing a bed with Byers, because he'd be god damned if he was leaving Langly's side for longer than it took to take a piss. And Chaz noticed it hadn't really occurred to either of them to ask _him_. Not that he gave a shit, really, but he knew that he and Reid were the outside edges of this pile, because they had to be, which was, by necessity, going to put him next to Byers. Maybe he'd just sleep on the floor, on Reid's side. That wasn't really _behind_ , was it?  
  
"Look, I'm not gonna say it, because I'm not going to insult you like that," Langly said, and Chaz stopped swabbing the gunk off Langly's back to listen. "I know what happens after you almost get killed. I'm real good at that. I think I might have kissed Mulder, one time, but we're not talking about that. But, it's been a few months, and you're fucking wonderful. Both of you. Everything's better in stereo, even if one of you is still completely terrifying. Both of you. Let's be honest. You both scare the shit out of me, for completely different reasons, but that's just because I actually have a sense of self preservation and it usually works. But, I just... you really... you came and got me. Just you. Hafs has been sending me shit since I got back and let her know I was alive. I know there was backup coming, and I know you didn't wait for it. And... I just... She told me you were coming. She told me to hold the door a little longer, because you were coming to get me. And then it wasn't there. I could feel it slipping away. The lights went out and I thought I was gonna die. And then you were there, and I wasn't dead, and I didn't have any pants, but I wasn't dead. And you were _there_. _Both_ of you."  
  
Langly burst into tears, wet, messy sobs against Reid's bare chest, and that was one of those things Reid had to take a moment to settle himself with. It was stupid -- they'd done substantially more disgusting things -- but snot dripping across his chest hit buttons he didn't know he had, but frankly should've expected.  
  
"I am _always_ going to come to get you. Always. And if we're all very lucky, I'll get there in time, and..." Reid choked up, the tears catching harder than the snot, finally. "This is the good ending to the story."  
  
And Chaz ached with the memory of loss, Reid's and his own. "We'll get the good ending. I may not like the journey, but we'll get there."  
  
"You can't really say that with any certainty," Reid argued, tipping his head back and sniffing, not to get snot in Langly's hair.  
  
"Spencer?" Chaz waited until Reid looked back down. "Yes. I can. Don't ask me about it, never ask me about it, but I can."  
  
"Is this one of those 'don't untie the ribbon' things?" Langly asked, voice muffled and thick. "We ask the wrong question and your head falls off?"  
  
"More like the dead friend who gives the four-hundred-year tour of heaven. You don't want to pay for those answers. I don't want to put the weight of it on you."  
  
"So, I ask you the question and _my_ head falls off. Yeah, I'm just gonna take your word for this one." Langly laughed nervously, trailing back off into broken breaths and tears.  
  
"You going to be okay if I finish up your back?" Chaz asked, quietly, looking away from the questions in Reid's eyes.  
  
"Sure. I'm fine." Langly sounded anything but fine. "What's it look like, anyway? That doesn't feel like blisters. I was expecting blisters."  
  
"It's not blisters." Chaz swabbed a bit of burn gel onto Langly's back and pressed a patch over it. "I think it wasn't strong enough for blisters, just strong enough to irritate the hell out of your skin. You're not bleeding, either. It's just swollen, red, and leaking ... I think that's plasma. Yellow, not red. I mean, if you're anything like me, and I think you _are_ in the applicable ways, you'll be over this by lunch tomorrow. You're not yet, because you haven't been eating for almost an entire day. It has to come from somewhere and you just don't have it to give, right now."  
  
"Great. Right. Freaky yellow scabs instead of blisters." Langly huffed. "Fuck this. Fuck all of this. When we get this asshole, I'm kicking him right in the eggs until he spits blood."  
  
"I don't think there's a connection between the testicles and the digestive system." Reid sounded almost amused.  
  
"There will be by the time I'm done kicking," Langly grumbled. "Maybe I'll just kick his balls up into his eyesockets."  
  
Chaz caught Reid's eye over Langly's shoulder, lips twisted ridiculously against a laugh. "Is it bad that I almost want to let him?"  
  
"I'd say it's the almost that counts, but you let me kick that guy in the hall right in the face. I hope he doesn't sue." Reid groaned and buried his face against the top of Langly's head.  
  
"Wait. You what? Was this some Bruce Lee shit? Did I miss Special Agent Sexy with Kung-Fu Action?" Langly tried to twist out of Reid's grip, to get a look at his face, but with the leg draped across him and Chaz working on his back, he couldn't quite manage.  
  
"More Chuck Norris than Bruce Lee, I think." Chaz snickered and Reid groaned. "Possibly even John Wayne. I mean, he shot the guy in the knee first, and then kicked him in the face."  
  
"It was-- While that is technically an accurate synopsis, I feel like you've left out the most important part," Reid protested. "I shot him in the knee and then he told me Langly was dead. _That's_ when I kicked him in the face. And the knee. And I was seriously considering doing it again! And all I have to say in my defence is that I was still holding my gun, and I _kicked_ him."  
  
"Because you wanted to watch him suffer," Chaz said, quietly, still working his way down Langly's back. "But, I won't tell them that if you don't. I'll call it a heroic act of restraint. Or maybe I'll just tell them you were entirely overcome with grief and lost your marbles for a minute. Anyone can relate. Especially if they've seen _that_ file."  
  
"They're going to take me out of the field, again," Reid muttered, irritably. "Just tell them you weren't expecting it, and you weren't fast enough to grab me. I'll take care of the rest."  
  
"To be fair, I _wasn't_ expecting it. I wasn't expecting that guy to be stupid enough to say that. Like, of all the lies in the world..."  
  
It occurred to Langly first. "Because he was trying to get you to do it. He was trying to get you to do something that couldn't be explained away. If they get you pulled off the case, they've taken out a third of the field team, and that probably leaves you at home, alone."  
  
"Why do I like my job?"  
  
"Because getting the bastards is the fun part, especially when they think they're smart." Chaz grinned and reached for another bandage only to find it stuck in Langly's hair. He grabbed the next one over.  
  
"I hate it when they actually _are_ smart, though," Reid sighed.  
  
"It doesn't happen often, but when it does..." Chaz shook his head. "And then it's twice the rush, dragging them down."  
  
"It's not, though. I feel ... bad. That could've been me. That could've been you." Reid wrapped an arm around Langly's back, across the already-bandaged electrode marks. "It's sad. It's a waste. That Valkyrie case in Florida? Disgruntled graduate student who snapped, when he watched his best friend get killed. It bothers me, because with the pieces in a different order, it _could've_ been me."  
  
"Serial killer, Spencer." Chaz shook his head. "A murderer, maybe, but you're ... I don't see you going serial."  
  
"Tell that to the Bureau. I'll be up for three shootings, by tomorrow."  
  
"Yeah, but you didn't _kill_ anyone," Langly cut in. "You severely wounded three guys with guns. I'm assuming those guns were pointed at you, at the time. This isn't even Florida, where you brought a gun to a knife fight, this is three guys _pointing guns at you_."  
  
"He's right, and you know it. It was the appropriate action. You announced yourself as a federal agent when you walked in, and they all decided assault with a deadly weapon was the correct answer. Given the number of shots fired in that building that didn't come from you, I'm going to say you have a fairly strong case for _killing them_. And you didn't." Chaz laid a kiss low on Langly's back. "One more. I ... didn't count right the first time."  
  
"Yes, you did. It's stuck in my hair. Did you really think I wasn't going to notice?"  
  
"... Dammit."  
  
"Byers tomorrow," Langly decided, suddenly. "I'm ... I love him. I do. He's my best damn friend, but ... the two of you apparently walked through a hail of gunfire to come and get me, and we're all still alive, and I just... I kind of want to wake up to that. I want to know right away that I'm not dreaming. That and I want to have had some sleep before he gets the chance to freak out about my back, because he's going to."  
  
"He already knows at least _some_ of it, but I didn't get a good look until we were back here, so... If he doesn't have a context for that kind of electrical torture, he's not going to be expecting it. I wasn't expecting it. I've gotten tased, but this one's new."  
  
Reid's brow dipped as he remembered something. "Didn't you also get struck by--"  
  
"I don't want to talk about it."  
  
"How the hell are you still alive?" Langly finally managed to look over his own shoulder.  
  
"This is the part where I'm supposed to say, 'Just lucky, I guess', but I think it's the Anomaly, and you deserve to know that. It will bend the laws of physics to keep you alive, but it's got limits -- you spatter yourself across the ground, and you're out of luck. And, of course, you have to feed it. Sad to say, you can't starve it out. It'll let you die before it lets go." Chaz pressed the last bandage into place. "How much trouble am I going to cause if I cook breakfast?"  
  
Langly cleared his throat. "Make me breakfast, Villette. There. Now you can say I told you to do it. Just make sure you make enough for all of us."  
  
"Apocalypse food," Reid warned, as Chaz gathered the remains from the bandaging and got up to put it all away.  
  
"You'd be surprised what I can cook. I prefer fresh ingredients, but I'm pretty clear that's not always an option, so I've learned to make do."  
  
"Fuck you. 'Make do'." Langly huffed. " _I'm_ making lunch. Chicken salad. I just need to eat something before I try standing up that long."  
  
Chaz snatched a can of Jolt and opened it, as he got back into bed. "Sit up and drink this. I don't want you crashing in your sleep."  
  
Langly huffed and tried to untangle himself from Reid. "Fine, _mom_."  
  
"Hey, I've seen what goes on in your head. I hope you don't think about your mother like you think of me!" Chaz laughed and leaned just enough out of the way not to take an elbow in the face.

* * *

He dreamed of white roses in tangled vines, thick as ropes, thorns like razors, rising from the dead ground, snatching at him, until he stumbled into a clearing, cracked earth as yellow as the sun that hung in the cloudless sky above. A path of dead leaves led him toward something hidden in plain sight, and he saw the leaves were growing from withered roots, still half buried in the earth. Another path, another, and he could see them converging on something.  
  
He heard it first, the rush of the torch -- loud, too. The kind of loud that couldn't possibly be safe at this distance. Not lit. But he turned his head, and in the corner of his eye, everything changed. The convergence exploded into an altar of lacquered leaves, like a stylised representation of the vines, and atop it sat an impossible flame, still hissing like a torch, but magnesium white. Scorching the earth, but leaving him untouched, which was strange because the flame wasn't aimed at the earth, but at the sky. Raging at heaven. Around him, the vines had changed. Some of the roses were still white and crisp, but others looked like they were wilting under the weight of blood, and yet more dripped with an inky blackness that would draw no closer to the flame, even as it pooled in the shade of the thorn vines.  
  
As he turned back to the altar, he realised the leaves of it were painted like manuscript pages, none of them in languages he could read. Foolishly, he kept trying, moving ever closer to the flame, which still didn't burn, even as the ground under his feet shifted and split. Visions lifted out of the most distant leaves as the ground around their roots cracked, and he half-recognised stories he'd heard in his sleep -- a duel, a woman in a tower, a long search and a terrible hesitation. Those he knew, even if he couldn't remember the stories. But, there were others, things that bubbled up from the ground that carried reflections of the flame -- an argument with a woman over a fistful of something, a lie told on a train, a cup of jello in a hospital, a shot fired with a gun that shouldn't have been there. Faces he didn't know, but felt like he should have.  
  
Slowly, he realised he'd backed into the altar, but he hadn't burned, he _wouldn't_ burn.  
  
So, what if...?  
  
He leaned into it, only slightly surprised to find easy places to put his feet, as if he were being led upward to the flame. A glance down showed something he thought, first, was his shadow -- it should have been his shadow with the bright white flame before him, but the shape was wrong, and the way it flickered. It came to him that it was the shadow of the flame, but it wasn't on the ground at all. The vastness of space stretched beneath him, licking at the ground the way the flame licked at the sky. And yet, he saw no stars in it.  
  
As he took the last step up, he could finally feel warmth -- and that's all it was. No burning, no blistering, just a welcoming warmth. The flame seemed to part, to make room for him at the top of the altar, and he could tell there was something else he couldn't quite see, in that space. He looked back, one more time, at the inky blackness that burbled beneath the thorn vines and the fire that had risen beyond them -- a real fire, this time, and the smell of burning wood reached him, even if the smoke didn't. There was no reason not to step into the white flame, to accept what it offered.  
  
The almost-visible became visible as he brushed against it, and he raised his hands to a tarnished silver sphere that hung in the air before him. It looked badly worn, the stains nearly obscuring the engraving, beneath, which seemed to change as he ran his fingers over it. What remained the same, he thought, was the band of text around the middle -- block lettering, but indecipherable. Still he knew it for both a promise and a warning, and he still didn't let go of the sphere, pulling it closer, rubbing at the stains with the bottom of his shirt. The shadow of the flame pooled around his feet, when he looked down, and it watched him as curiously as he watched it.  
  
He studied the sphere again as the dream began to slip away, the sphere the last clear part of it. What did that even say? Armor vengeance domino? That didn't make sense at all! And it was too long. What he really wanted was--  
  
He could see the hint of blue light where his eye wasn't quite closed, and as he snuggled closer, Reid made a small, curious sound, and Chaz flexed the leg that lay across them both. _What a weird dream_ , Langly thought, drifting off again.


	20. Chapter 20

Morning found Langly still dizzy and a little less than entirely functional, and after he fell into the toilet, gaining himself a black eye from the corner of the tank and a wet, sprained wrist, Reid volunteered to move the recliner into the kitchen, where it could be guaranteed that no matter what Langly needed, one of them would be close enough to get it. Chaz, of course, carried Langly, who refused to put on more than boxers and a bathrobe, until his back stopped itching. He squirmed uncomfortably in the chair, as Byers tucked the throw from the sofa around him, clucking and patting like a hen.  
  
"Byers, I'm fine."  
  
Reid couldn't quite hold back a disbelieving laugh, before his first cup of coffee.  
  
"You just sprained your wrist taking a header into the toilet, because you were too dizzy to stand up," Chaz pointed out, flipping another pan of scrambled eggs onto a tray with one hand and pouring pancake batter with the other. "You have a black eye. Byers had to rescue your glasses from the half a piss that made it into the bowl. Pretty sure that's not 'fine'."  
  
"I'm wearing the shitty glasses," Langly protested. "They give me a headache! That's all it is! Dizzy from shitty glasses!"  
  
"Well, we'll know in a minute." Frohike came into the kitchen carrying a small box. "We had a new pair overnighted."  
  
"You... you bought me new glasses. You heard I'd been found tied naked to a table, and you bought me new glasses." Langly grinned a little too wide for his face. "I _knew_ there was a reason I put up with you all these years!"  
  
"Now, if only I could figure out why I put up with you..." Frohike muttered.  
  
"We're the ones sitting next to your prescription. You know what size pants you wear, but I don't think you can spec your glasses off the top of your head," Byers pointed out as Langly ripped the box open and switched glasses.  
  
"Oh, god, I can see..." Langly groaned in ecstasy and leaned back in the chair. "I'm fine. I just needed my glasses back."  
  
Byers's attention drifted to Reid. "So, Dr Reid, speaking of glasses, I noticed in your files that you'd been wearing contacts for years and then stopped. What--?"  
  
Reid held up a finger and pointed at Langly. "I want you to imagine what he just went through. Now, I want you to imagine that with contacts. There's a point at which you just make certain lifestyle adjustments for the job."  
  
Langly and Frohike looked horrified at the thought. Chaz looked contemplative.  
  
"Ways that could have been worse: contacts. Didn't even think of that. Thanks. I knew I was missing something." He paused. "On the other hand, girls seldom make passes at boys who wear glasses, or so I've been told."  
  
"Bull _shit_ , sir." Reid smiled behind his coffee cup. "That's never been a problem for me, however much I might have hoped it would be."  
  
"Which is why you've spent the last how many years single?" Chaz teased, expecting Reid to throw it back at him. He'd been single for more years than he could admit living.  
  
"You're confusing opportunity with desire," Reid replied, and all eyes in the room landed on Langly.  
  
" _Anyway_ , point is, I'm fine. I'll make lunch," Langly argued, as Byers handed him a plate of pancakes and eggs.  
  
"You should make yourself comfortable in that chair, before Byers sits on you to keep you in it," Frohike suggested, examining one of Chaz's pancakes. "This is a very fluffy pancake."  
  
"The fluffier you make them, the more syrup they'll hold." Chaz grinned, rolling up a pancake and eating it, in the time before he had to flip the next batch.  
  
"How much syrup does one man need?" Frohike looked unconvinced.  
  
"Langly drinks Jolt for breakfast and you're actually asking that?" Byers cut in, pouring himself a cup of coffee.  
  
"My pancakes also usually have protein powder in them," Chaz pointed out, "so they're a _little_ less fluffy than this, but the caloric density goes way up. As awesome as living on cheesecake sounds, you've got to switch it up every once in a while. It is absolutely possible to get tired of cheesecake."  
  
"If you got tired of cheesecake, that means you know how to make cheesecake," Langly observed, washing down a mouthful of eggs with his third can of Jolt. "So... you're teaching me to make cheesecake, right? So, I can get tired of it on my own time?"  
  
"Italian, New York, or no-bake?" Chaz asked, trying to figure out if he'd actually cooked enough for the people in the room, as opposed to his usual impressions of 'cooking for people', which frequently involved not being the only one cooking and another three or four people. Two gammas, three alphas... probably.  
  
"Italian," Frohike decided.  
  
"Uh, New York?" Langly looked stunned at the idea that any other cheesecake might be worth eating.  
  
Byers nodded. "I'm with Langly. Italian's got those ... fruitcake bits in it."  
  
"Cheesecake goes in the oven?" Reid blinked in surprise. "I guess I never thought about it."  
  
"You also don't eat cheesecake," Langly reminded him. "Or I hope you don't. I don't think I have enough pickles and beer for you to be eating cheesecake."  
  
"Sometimes I eat cheesecake! I _do_ eat cheese, despite rumours to the contrary!"  
  
"Despite demonstrations of why you shouldn't." Langly rolled his eyes and made to get up for more pancakes.  
  
Byers pushed him back into the chair and took the plate.  
  
"That was an utterly obscene amount of cream cheese and half of it was sugar," Reid argued, over the coffee he held in both hands.  
  
"No more obscene than what you were doing with it." Frohike shuddered dramatically.  
  
Chaz said nothing, having already experienced the incident in question, and only a faint smile disrupted his composure as he set a full plate in front of Reid.  
  
"That... is... a _lot_ of food." Reid looked up at Chaz, waiting to hear he'd been handed the wrong plate.  
  
"That's a reminder that eating is a thing people are supposed to do, and you should include yourself in that set." Chaz loaded a plate for himself and soaked the pancakes in hot syrup. "And I know you're not going to eat if I don't put it in front of you."  
  
"I eat!" Reid protested. "As demonstrated by the fact that neither of you have witnessed me eating cheesecake, but I absolutely do!"  
  
"I'm fairly sure most of us have seen Dr Reid cook," Byers pointed out, putting more food in front of Langly, before getting some for himself. "That would seem to indicate that he does actually eat, at least sometimes, without prompting."  
  
"Surprisingly to some, I also _sleep_."  
  
"Ah, yes, those quiet spots between rounds of screaming for Langly to do things to you I'm still not sure are physically possible." Frohike sat down with a cup of coffee.  
  
Reid's face went still, and his eyes travelled up from his coffee to Frohike's face. "Then you don't know Langly as well as you think, do you?"  
  
Langly looked more than a little smug.  
  
Chaz could feel Byers looking at him, expecting something he wasn't going to provide. "What time is it?"  
  
"Four." Reid pointed up at the clock above a collection of maps. "We have a few hours before they're expecting us."  
  
"On a fucking Friday. You'd think they'd at least put it off until Monday." Chaz groaned and cut off any further complaints from himself with a mouthful of pancake.  
  
"You're going to _work_?" Langly sounded horrified. " _Today?_ "  
  
Reid laughed, bitter as truckstop coffee. "Yeah, I'm going to work, today, and then I'm probably going to be on leave, again. That's really an awful lot of bullets for me, in a very short period of time. Someone's going to be concerned."  
  
"You didn't kill anyone, this time," Chaz reminded him.  
  
"I didn't kill anyone last time, either!" Finally, _finally_ , Reid managed to actually put food in his mouth, and he couldn't be sure if that was his own intent or Chaz's subtle nudging, but either way, if he was going to have to tell this story again, he should most likely have eaten, first. "I feel like 'don't draw your gun unless you're ready to kill someone' is excellent advice, but at the same time, one shouldn't feel obligated to kill someone because two guns have been drawn. Or eight. Having been shot in the knee, I find it's an excellent response to situations where negotiation is off the table before you've made it through the door."  
  
"You know that's what they're going to argue, right? That the situation should have been handled by a hostage negotiator and not an angry boyfriend?"  
  
"The situation was handled by the first agents on the scene, and this was not a hostage situation. I will be happy to inform them exactly which and how many orifices they can cram that line of thought into. This was handled with the utmost professionalism."  
  
Langly cleared his throat. "Kung Fu Action."  
  
"Fine. It is technically possible one fewer person might have been kicked in the face, if someone else handled it. It's also extremely likely you'd have been dead, because I was outside the door when you lost consciousness. I heard the lock disengage."  
  
Langly looked like he might swallow his lips, eyes suddenly damp. He had no idea how close they'd been, when he blacked out, _or_ how close he'd been to being shot or moved again.  
  
"Yeah, but you can't tell them that," Chaz reminded him.  
  
"What I can tell them is that there were two men in the hall, facing the door, both of them were armed, and they tried to shoot us. The obvious conclusion is that they intended to kill the victim. After all, the door was already unlocked, by the time we got to it." Reid's face was strangely still. "I did still kick someone in the face. I'm getting suspended for that. Hopefully, I still have a job after that. The last few years have been a little... interesting."  
  
And that was when Chaz decided he'd just solve that problem, and put it out of his mind before Reid could catch the details. No sense in letting Reid see what he meant to do, and doubly once it was done. No, that was the kind of thing that destroyed relationships, and he rather liked this one. But, the Fitzgerald taskforce was still only three people, and the further into the case he got, the less he wanted to let go of it -- this was the kind of shit where if they didn't succeed, things wouldn't just go on as they had, before. Helmsman would be free to retaliate.  
  
But, he _had_ solved the problem, long before it should've had a chance to start. This shouldn't have been a concern.  
  
"Hey, Langly? Which report does the face-kicking appear in?"  
  
Langly shook his head. "I don't think I have it. Hafs said it happened, but it's not in any of the reports from the scene."  
  
"Because it's not there," Chaz realised, nodding slowly as the pieces came together in his head. "She knows because she probably came back into the network after you. I don't remember any obvious cameras in the building, but..."  
  
"I was using somebody's phone." Langly shrugged. "I got that part. I remember it was AT&T, but ... I wasn't really paying attention to whose it was."  
  
Chaz laughed. "She heard it happen, then. She came in to try to back you up, and heard everything the phone could hear. Which means she's the only other person who knows it happened."  
  
"Aside from the guy I kicked in the face and the guy next to him," Reid pointed out.  
  
"Maybe."  
  
Reid drew up straight, putting his fork down with a sharp clink against the plate. "What the hell did you do?"  
  
"Nothing that will affect the evidence they present. They're absolutely still in their right minds, and everything they say will be as true as it would have been, otherwise." Chaz held up his hands. "I also dragged both of them, after they were shot, in an attempt to get everyone in the building into one place. There were only two of us. I wasn't leaving two conscious men somewhere I couldn't see them, no matter how severely wounded they may have been. I wasn't prepared for that kind of raid. Not enough cuffs."  
  
"At what point do we become them?" Reid demanded, turning furious eyes on Chaz.  
  
The table fell silent for a long moment.  
  
"Not this one," Byers said, finally, and Reid blinked at him, stunned. "You shouldn't have kicked that guy. I think we all agree. But, the fact that you did opened an opportunity for him to use that to leverage a deal, at the least, if not to make a convincing argument against the entire investigation into Helmsman. You opened a door to a serious miscarriage of justice that would have endangered all of us and probably tens of people we don't even know. Agent Villette may have closed that door, and to take him at his word, that's all he did."  
  
"Because I don't just want a closed case. I want to get the right people for it, and if that means I have to cover your ass for a completely understandable moment of temporary insanity that could jeopardise the entire investigation, then that's what I'm going to do."  
  
Reid put his head in his hands, tipping his face down until he was staring into his plate. "I don't like it."  
  
"Then maybe don't kick people in the face," Frohike suggested.  
  
"Shut up, Doohickey." Langly winged a wadded up napkin at him. "You'd have done it. I'd have done it. Give me five minutes with the guy, and I'll do it now!"  
  
"You're right. I would have. But, I don't have a _badge_."

* * *

"So, what's with you and Villette?" Frohike asked, after the feds had left.  
  
"Task force? Woo woo freaky powers? What the hell do you think is with me and Villette?" Langly was still in the recliner at the kitchen table, flicking through security cameras and waiting for faces he knew. Hafs would probably be up his ass in another hour. He was great at this, but the two of them left the kind of signature only they could see, and he just wasn't feeling well enough to clean up after himself, today. Not yet. Not for something like this. She'd know why he was watching and that all he could really do was watch.  
  
"I don't really care what you do in your spare time, since we got the walls back in, but I think you need to be very careful what kind of shit you try to pull on Reid."  
  
" _What?_ " Langly blinked over the screen like a stunned owl. Frohike was right that pissing off Reid would have serious and potentially fatal long-term consequences, but... "Did you just accuse me of fucking around on Reid? Did those words just come out of your mouth?"  
  
"Penny said it, and I'm starting to think she's right. Especially after reading the transcripts."  
  
Langly shoved the laptop onto the table and hauled himself to his feet. "It's not your business, Frohike. And you're wrong. Villette's got it bad for _Reid_. I'm just the icing on the federal cupcake. You done sticking your nose where it doesn't belong?"  
  
Frohike blinked, looking down at the transcripts he'd grabbed from under all the other paperwork at the end of the table. " _Reid?_ "  
  
"Yes, okay? Villette is hot for my boyfriend, complete with some kind of freaky cryptid bullshit that only the two of them understand." Langly rested his fingertips on the table, trying to look like he wasn't supporting as much of his weight on them as he was. At least it wasn't the wrist he'd fallen on. " _And I like it_. Leave it the hell alone, Frohike. It's quiet because the Twink Twins _work together_ , and this would be the end of them in the office."  
  
Frohike swallowed and stepped back. He'd put his foot in it, this time. He'd put his whole fucking leg in it. Whatever he'd expected, it wasn't this.  
  
"You know who else has heard the recordings? _Reid_. And that should've crossed your mind before any of this." Langly wobbled, then threw himself back into the chair. "Congrats, _Melvin_. You've uncovered the sex scandal of the century -- I'm _not_ cheating on my boyfriend. We're both doing Villette, usually at the same time."  
  
"Villette tried to deny it, last night--"  
  
"You _asked him_?" Langly almost got up again, but he couldn't quite stand and hold on to the network at the same time. "You didn't ask me, you asked _him_?"  
  
"You were in bed. I had the transcripts, and he's got freaky psychic powers. What was I going to think?"  
  
"So, you made the jump from weird mind-control to me cheating on Reid, because that's the most sensible _possible_ conclusion from the evidence." Langly looked like he was debating letting go of the network. "Jesus christ, Frohike, how many years has it been since I punched you in the eye? Because I'm about to give you the other half the set."  
  
"You lie really badly, and we all know it. I don't think you could lie well with Villette poking you in the brain, you do it so badly."  
  
"Are you just trying to piss me off, or do you have a point?"  
  
"The point is, you and I both know more than we should about all kinds of mind control and weird psychic bullshit. I figured you'd try to lie to me, first, but we've done this before, and I figured if I pissed you off, you'd break through it. Shortest route between you and pissed off was probably to bring Reid into it." Frohike shrugged. "I asked Villette, last night, if Reid knew about the two of you, and he just laughed it off and changed the subject."  
  
"Of fucking course he did, you top-grade bumblefuck. If you were asking _him_ , then obviously _I_ didn't tell you, and he'd have noticed that. I know you. If I didn't tell you, then _maybe_ you're not supposed to know." Langly paused, picking up his laptop again. "It's called a personal life for a reason, Frohike."  
  
"Stops being your personal life when it might bite us all in the ass," Frohike retorted, knowing they were both right.  
  
"You giving Byers this much shit about Penny, or are we more worried about Susanne?" Langly glared and reached down for the blanket he'd dumped out of his lap when he jumped up.  
  
"You'll notice Susanne still doesn't know where we _live_."


	21. Chapter 21

Finally out of too many meetings, too many questions of confidence and competence, Chaz made sad faces at Hafidha until she agreed to take a look at Reid's apartment. Langly would do it himself, Chaz explained, but at that moment, Langly was barely able to walk under his own power, and he must be, as Chaz was sure she must be aware, blowing what little strength he had on his pursuit of those responsible.  
  
"He's not back up, yet?" Hafidha asked, as they came up the stairs to Reid's place. "Are you sure he's all right? Are they feeding him well?"  
  
"He's just being stubborn and stupid. He's better than he was yesterday, which isn't saying much, but he was walking before breakfast, even if that didn't end well. As long as he keeps his ass in the chair and keeps eating, he'll be fine." Chaz shook his head and rolled his eyes.  
  
"Uh-huh. Sounds like someone else I know."  
  
"I am the absolute picture of innocence."  
  
"You are the absolute picture of stubborn jackassery."  
  
"Both," Chaz decided, knocking on the door.  
  
Hafidha studied the distance between doors. "This is like your old pl--"  
  
The door opened, and Reid stood there, looking entirely awkward. After a moment he stepped side and gestured both of them in. "More people have been in my apartment since I met Frank than in the entire time prior to that."  
  
"Sweetie, I'm just here to make sure nobody's got eyes on you." Hafidha patted Reid's chest, absently -- it was the most heavily clothed part of his body. "And there's nothing _in here_ , but--" She froze and then turned toward the door. "Did you order food?"  
  
"Enough for all of us. I've gotten used to what that looks like." Reid smiled, still awkward in his own home.  
  
"Good! Then I have far fewer concerns about the man with the unmarked thermal bags, and dinner should be here in about a minute."  
  
"She does that." Chaz shrugged. "Most cameras--"  
  
"Have network access, whether or not they're being used that way. I remember." Reid nodded, thinking of the times Langly would watch for cameras and turn just so to avoid getting his face spotted by any of them. "Frank does it, too."  
  
"What's his range?" Hafidha asked, but Reid shook his head.  
  
"I wouldn't know how to tell."  
  
They were interrupted by a knock at the door, and as Reid went to answer it, Hafidha and Chaz stepped out of the line of sight, to either side. It was probably just the delivery guy, but it was better to be cautious -- especially now. But, Reid managed to pay for supper and get it onto the table with no surprises. He let the pair of gammas start without him, as had become normal in his life, and went to get the coffee from the kitchen.  
  
"Spencer?" Hafidha's voice held a warning. "Do exactly as I say."  
  
Reid froze, hand still on the coffee pot.  
  
"Lean over the middle of the sink and close that window."  
  
Confused, Reid did so, spotting the man standing by the dumpster with a camera. "Bollinger," he spat, turning his face away from the window as he said it.  
  
"I think so, yeah."  
  
Reid came back in with the coffee. "After the things Langly threatened to do to him, I'm extremely surprised he's here."  
  
"You want me to follow through on those promises? Because I'd rather figure out where these images are going, before I shut off his lights and smear his social media."  
  
"Hafs," Chaz sighed.  
  
"What? I can do a friend a favour in his time of need!" Hafidha kept eating, fork in one hand as she sifted data with the other, one lens of her glasses flickering in indecipherable bright colours. "What do we want to do?"  
  
"Give him the rope to hang himself, but stop it before it goes to press," Reid decided. "If he's actually writing an article, kill it."  
  
"How's his angle?" Chaz asked, with a contemplative glance toward the kitchen. "Is he getting much besides the ceiling?"  
  
"Not in the kitchen, but he got the door and the delivery, sort of. Definitely got you coming in. I'm... identifiable, I guess, but the door's far enough back that you're clear." Hafidha spread her hand as if fanning photos across the table, and Reid supposed she was.  
  
"This is what I get for opening the drapes," Reid muttered, irritated with himself. "I never open the drapes. The light's usually too much. But, it's been a very long day, and I just wanted to nap in the last of the sun, and now _this_."  
  
"Say the word and I'll make it all go away," Hafidha offered again.  
  
"No. I want to know if this is just because we pissed him off, or if there's something else going on here." Reid shook his head and moved toward the windows. "I'm closing the drapes, though. Whatever he's gotten, it's more than enough -- and this means I can't get back to Frank, tonight, because if he follows me, we're going to have a very serious problem."  
  
Chaz set his fork aside and stood up. "You know, I could--"  
  
"Charles Villette, put your ass back in that chair," Hafidha snapped, not even looking up from what she was doing.  
  
" _What?_ "  
  
"I know that look. Don't do it. If you scramble his brains, it's going to take me longer to figure out what's going on, here."  
  
Chaz dropped back into his chair, rocked it back against the half wall, and rested his head, hands over his face, on the top of it, as he realised what he'd actually gotten up to do, as opposed to what he thought he'd gotten up to do. "I'm not like this, usually. And maybe I'm angry, but I'm not half as angry as you are, Spencer."  
  
"I didn't think it." Reid looked over his shoulder to be sure his lips couldn't be read from outside as he closed the drapes on the last window.  
  
"No, I know you didn't. That was absolutely me. But, we're... Between the two of us, I'm angry enough to do something like that." Chaz dropped his hands into his lap and stared up at the ceiling in confused disgust. "Right. Noted. That's a thing I have to pay attention to, now."  
  
"Or you could just let go," Hafidha suggested, with a faint and unpleasant smile.  
  
"I'd rather learn to deal with it," Chaz said, firmly, trying not to have to explain how serious this had become, how alone they both were when he had to back out, how he'd developed another lens, another fixture, another pane -- or was it merely a feather? -- just for Reid. He did not want to explain that they'd, in some ways, actually become the evil twins they were said to be in jest.  
  
"Chazzie, do you hear yourself? You've lost your mind."  
  
"I guess I'm lucky that it's _my_ mind to lose, then." Chaz sat back up, the legs of the chair hitting the floor serving as punctuation. "And it's not crazy. It's what you've been telling Frank to do -- to stop letting the mythology control him. We thought we knew how this worked. We gave it rules; we defined it by functions. But, we've never known what the fuck it is, or why you have more trouble fighting it than I do -- we've got some theories, and most of the time they work, at least for a little while, but what one thing do we know for absolutely certain? _Nothing_ , anymore. Not after Holly. Every single rule has been broken. And now I'm going to break another one -- I'm going to force-feed it hope until it chokes."  
  
"You're going to take ten years off your life, if you develop another passive."  
  
"What life? The one that should've killed me a decade ago?" Chaz pulled up his sleeve and leaned across the table, letting his grotesquely thin, scarred forearm make the point. "It's already killing me. It's been killing me for for-- thirty-five years, and let's not get into how many times I _really_ almost didn't come back. No one has _ever_ lived this long with it. Nobody's sure why I'm still alive, and you know it. And maybe I'll buy myself something better, something longer, if I start shoving back harder."  
  
"Spencer? You have an opinion on being used as a guinea pig in my little brother's latest attempt to throw himself into the jaws of death and miss?"  
  
"If it just means getting better at what we've been doing, I can only see that going well. As we get better, it should require less effort than it does now, from both of us, and that would suggest that while he may still be above the previous normal mark, he's going to be burning less calories than he is right now." Reid paused and took a deep breath, looking a little surprised. "Which means it's probably too late to return to normal, since the power has developed to be used in this way, and the only way out is forward. I'll do my best to remain myself during these proceedings, since I'm very attached to being myself."  
  
Hafidha fell silent, eyes on her plate, as she chewed through a few more mouthfuls. When she looked up, she pinned Reid with her eyes. "I don't think I need to tell you how pissed off I am that you're probably right."  
  
"So, back to the point, now that I'm pissed off about something else, what I _meant_ to do was go see what I could read from Bollinger. Because, you know, that's what I _do_ , professionally. So we could skip the evidence part and jump straight to the part where we know what he's trying to do." Chaz got up again. "The evidence would be nice, but I think we have more immediate concerns."  
  
"Shit," Hafidha swore. "He's already out of your range."  
  
Chaz took a slow breath, eyes closed, as he chewed on his lip. "Get me a traffic camera with a low ping time. It's not going to be good, but maybe I can get _something_."

* * *

After the text from Reid -- _Can't get back. Bollinger._ \-- Langly reached out to discover that Hafidha had taken his spot at the table, for the night. She assured him she had everything under control, even if Chaz was garbage at reading from live video. Langly made a few demands -- namely that she and Chaz take Reid home with them -- before he went back to taking Chaz's advice, and making another pan of fritters.  
  
He was getting better, a lot better really, standing and walking, manhandling the network, but he still felt a little gross, and he couldn't figure out if that was a skin-level gross or something more, but a shower hadn't helped. When Byers came through the kitchen again, aiming for another cup of coffee, Langly made a decision.  
  
"I'm thinking about going back to bed."  
  
"Rest is good for you, especially now, and you are kind of notoriously terrible at it," Byers pointed out. "You want us to send Reid back, when he gets here?"  
  
"He's not coming."  
  
Byers turned, slowly, confused. "What happened? Is he all right?"  
  
"He's protecting us. That damn reporter came back on him, and he's afraid of leading the guy back here. Hafs is going to keep an eye on things, for the night, and I should be able to take over, tomorrow." Langly finished the last fritter in the bowl and tried to wipe the grease off his hands.  
  
"I've never known you to step aside gracefully. What's going on, Langly?" Byers crossed the kitchen.  
  
"I have to go to bed. Twenty-four hour surveillance is supposed to involve at least two people, and she caught it, so she gets the first shift." Half a smile crept across Langly's face, as he didn't admit he'd tried to keep up, so she could pass it off to him, now, and he was still too burnt to manage. "I need to get this guy, this time. He's gotten in the middle of one birthday, and I'm not letting him do it again. Minor distraction. Really need to get Helmsman, but I'm starting to wonder if there's a connection. Random gossip reporter shows up taking pictures and a few days later, I get grabbed coming back from the raid? Me. Specifically me. I don't like it."  
  
"Everything isn't always connected. It could just be you really pissed him off, and now he's going for some revenge piece." Byers shrugged. "Latest interviews are in. It looks like more Columbians, and none of them are talking. I've heard rumours Agent Villette will be sitting in on the next round."  
  
"And then we'll know what they know." Langly looked grimly amused. "You want to come to bed and tell me about what we know, so I don't have to disturb my delicate constitution, before I take over on Bollinger in a few hours?"  
  
"I should probably go to bed anyway." Byers yawned and looked at the coffee he'd just poured himself, before setting it on the table. "You need help getting there?"  
  
Langly offered a mischievous smile. "You should carry me."  
  
Byers raised an eyebrow. "Uh-huh. You said it, instead of arguing about it. That means you can do it yourself, and you're sure of it."  
  
Langly huffed and shoved himself out of the recliner. "Spoilsport."

* * *

"So how much trouble are we in?" Chaz asked Hafidha, once they were all settled around the coffee table, Reid primly perched at the opposite end of the sofa from him.  
  
"You're not. The word is they're pretty impressed with how this was handled, especially with the apparent E-H gas leakage, once the shooting started." Hafidha eyed Reid. "Nice improv."  
  
"Hey, I've never seen the gas in action. I wasn't in Florida. But, I have been provided with the antidote, and it was my best guess, given other circumstances where someone more experienced with the chemical in question assumed it was what was in use." Reid smiled innocently. "You have to remember, I have no idea what happened in the central room. I didn't see anything. The first shot came from behind us, and Chaz knocked me down. I can only make educated assumptions, based on what we saw and heard."  
  
Chaz nodded. "Falkner knows better, but we're sticking to the gas story, for the official reports."  
  
"Nobody seems too offended about the kneecapping, either," Hafidha said, picking up the very large coffee milkshake from the corner of the table. "They're too impressed that the only guy who died apparently fell off the catwalk, without assistance. It honestly looks pretty clean. Not a word about that guy you creamed."  
  
Reid groaned and stretched a hand across his eyes. "Can we not ta-- No, you know what, how is it that you know that and no one else does?"  
  
"You kicked him hard enough to knock the bluetooth earpiece out, and then I heard the scuffle when Chaz ... grabbed you, I'm guessing? You were going back for another, weren't you? Not that I'm ever going to blame you for it. Good thing it was you and not me. I'd have stomped instead of kicked." Hafidha smiled brightly, the wide straw of the milkshake held in her teeth.  
  
"Yeah, that's... about right." Reid nodded, not moving his hand. "You heard what he said, then."  
  
"I couldn't get to you fast enough to say it wasn't true, but you knew that, didn't you? That's right about when I lost Frank, so the door must've still been locked, or it _just_ unlocked."  
  
Reid nodded again, swallowing hard. "We should've been there sooner."  
  
"You saved his life," Hafidha reminded him. "Honey, you got there in plenty of time to do that. He's doing great."  
  
"Can he take a piss without help, yet?" Chaz snorted. "That was not what I wanted to wake up to."  
  
At the other end of the couch, Reid's hand moved down to cover his mouth as he tried to pretend he wasn't laughing. "That was almost serious."  
  
"Yeah, but it wasn't. He didn't even get a concussion. Probably slowed down the healing a little when he sprained his wrist, though."  
  
"Wait, what? How do you sprain your wrist taking a piss?" Hafidha's eyes shifted from one to the other of the evil twins. "Is this some weird macho thing?"  
  
"Not quite. It's a trying to pee while standing up, while your blood pressure's already low thing," Reid filled in.  
  
Chaz picked it up from there. "He fell _in_ the toilet, and tried to catch himself, but missed the tank and shoved his arm in the bowl on the way down. I woke up somewhere around the part where he slammed his head on the corner of the tank and flipped the lid off."  
  
"So, this is a post-incident reconstruction, based on the evidence at hand?"  
  
"At hand, at foot, underfoot..." Chaz shook his head.  
  
"Hey, at least Fitz volunteered to wash the floor." Reid still sounded amused.  
  
"Oh, like you couldn't have." Chaz shoved his knee with one foot. "I can't believe you wouldn't let the paramedics take him after the first time he shit on you."  
  
"I put him down when we touched down at the hospital. They wanted to get a better look at his back, in flight, anyway. There was no point."  
  
"See that? That is devotion." Hafidha pointed at Reid and eyed Chaz. "Where can I get a man like that?"  
  
Chaz rolled his eyes, cleared his throat, and looked down at himself and back up at Hafidha.  
  
"Ok, let me try that again: Where can I get a man like that, that I wouldn't feel skeevy doing the horizontal tango with?"  
  
Chaz crossed his legs and aimed for a solidly grossed-out look. He _didn't_ tell her he thought she'd found that and lost it.  
  
"I hate to break up an investigation, but Bollinger just set the photos from tonight _public_ , and I'm pretty sure that's not something you want." Hafidha's eyes settled on Reid, or at least one did, the other still distorted by the continuous flicker.  
  
"Leave it." Reid's hands clenched tight in his lap. "Wait. What kind of public?"  
  
"The kind where they're available to anyone on the internet but he's not pointing at them, yet."  
  
"Wait until he points. We don't want to get in his way until he shows us who he's working for." Reid shook his head. "I know the obvious answer to that is that he's employed by the Ruby Mirror, but the fact that he didn't upload to the paper, this time, suggests that's not the answer we're looking for."  
  
"Oh, that's... not useful, yet." Hafidha slurped at the milkshake and leaned back in her chair, putting one foot up on the coffee table. "The email's titled 'Good Faith', and he's sent it to an address I can't run back from. All the access logs point back to a VPN. I can do it -- Frank can probably do it -- but I have to be doing it live. I'd have to wait until someone tries to log in to the account, at least. The more pageloads, the better. The VPN may not keep logs, but their servers do have to know where the data's going while it's in motion."  
  
"So, now we wait." Reid nodded slowly.  
  
"Like you don't have something better to do with your time, and yes I will be down here until Frank picks it up. He's gone totally offline. Probably sleeping."  
  
Reid rubbed a thumb across his knuckles and stared at the blackout curtains that covered the patio door.  
  
"I know," Chaz said, sitting up enough to take one of Reid's hands.  
  
"The nightmares..."  
  
"I know. But, we can't be there, because even if we get in, we also have to get out, and I'm... very glad we left in a rental car."  
  
"You think Bollinger's going to go after the traffic cameras?" Hafidha scoffed. "I don't think he's even aware of them as a source of information."  
  
"Helmsman," Reid replied, having followed that line of thought. "We took a rental because it would be harder to follow us. Frank broke the GPS. Bollinger might follow _me_ , but Helmsman would have the knowledge and resources to pull traffic footage and GPS records." He went paler than usual. "I didn't turn off my phone."  
  
Hafidha raised a hand. "Already got it. Which, of course, means now I know, but... I don't actually care, and I knew before. I know everything. Speaking of which, have you _seen_ their porn collection? It's incredible. There's terabytes of--"  
  
"The Swedish Ministry of Tits?" Reid cleared his throat. "It's Whiskey's. He's got a thing about preservation of ephemera, and I'll give him credit for that. Future historians will come to know twentieth century erotica that might otherwise have been lost. It's not my thing, but I'm glad it's somebody's."  
  
"The excuse me what?" Chaz blinked owlishly.  
  
"Swedish Ministry of Tits," Reid pronounced, slowly. "No, I don't know if that's actually the name of a magazine. It came up in conversation."  
  
Chaz blinked a few more times and turned back to Hafidha. "Would you push the henchman interviews to my laptop, since I know you're sitting on them already?"  
  
"Your boyfriend says 'tits' and suddenly it's a work night?" Hafidha teased.  
  
"He's not my boyfriend," they both drawled, simultaneously, voices almost indistinguishable.  
  
"Okay, we are accelerating along the road to Creepyville." Hafidha froze, staring at them.  
  
Reid offered a slightly chastened smile. "It's a talent."  
  
"After all these years, _this_ is where she calls me creepy." Chaz sighed dramatically and picked up his laptop from the coffee table. "That's it. I'm taking this party upstairs, hopefully with people who appreciate my talents."  
  
"Expanding the data matrix?" Reid asked, getting up.  
  
"Ooh, baby," Chaz replied, monotone, as he unfolded himself from the sofa.


	22. Chapter 22

They'd fallen asleep in the wrong order, again, and the dreams were vivid and merciless. Fire and morphine. ( _was that morphine? what was that? it felt like morphine._ ) Shackles/rope/duct tape -- did it matter? They couldn't move. Their wrists ached and burned with the effort of straining against it. The smell of smoke and cold, dank earth. Where was this? A face that was two faces, always looking down. Three faces. Those eyes. Voices that made no words, but called for purity, repentance, rebirth. The feel of a shovel, of a knife, of everything ending. Shining blood, so much blood. Bone and gore and vanishing into it.  
  
Reid woke with a start, still dressed, one cold hand stuffed under Chaz's laptop for warmth. The dream hadn't left him -- it still played behind his eyes as he took in what he could see in the dim glow of the screensaver. Chaz was wrapped tight around him, tense and still, fingers dug into his back, every breath deep but too quick.  
  
Reminding himself he was awake and knew where he was, Reid focused on the room around them, trying to settle himself and by extension Chaz. Slate-blue walls, heavy black comforter, a lingering scent of some habitual heavy incense, his own breathing, awake and alive. Awake and alive. And for a moment, he thought it would work. Chaz stirred, against him. In the dream, everything went black.  
  
And then the wings exploded from dream-Chaz's back, vivid with gore, every drop of blood reflecting something drawn out of the dark. Some of them, Reid recognised, and as he picked one out, trying to decipher what had changed, the dream crossed over his perceptions and one wing could be felt stretched back along the bed, the other curled over him, wet and sticky, staring like a thousand eyes in a dark room. It was just the dream, he told himself, and fought it harder, ignoring the crushing nausea as his mind tried to absorb its own worst moments, forty or fifty at a time.  
  
_Langly. Think of Langly. Think of Garcia, who has been nothing but sweetness and light, all these years. Think of the arc on that potato as it punched through the skylight, just like you said it would. Don't think of your mother. Don't open that box. When were you happy? A conference, an article, that time you absolutely roasted Westbrook over his interpretations of the narrator's voice in the C text of Piers Plowman. Here, in this bed, with your other half and your better half, as it were._  
  
Every memory that caught and reflected pierced the darkness like a tiny red star, a diffracting prism, replacing the murky, wet reflections of horror, dread, and regret. And as Reid continued to focus on the things that made him happy, the feeling of contentment, Chaz slowly became radiant with it, in the dream and out of it. Or in the dream and in the illusion of it, Reid supposed, watching the wing over him fill with light, like some strange stained glass. And the brighter it got, the easier it was to keep going. The reflections reminded him of things, times he'd been good and right and useful. Times he'd been thanked. Times he'd just sat and watched the time pass in the sun against the pages of a book.  
  
And somewhere in there, something started pushing back. replacing the reflections of happiness with other people with memories of their deaths, their rejections, replacing reflections of solitude and contentment with his own shame and horror at himself.  
  
It was just a nightmare, Reid knew, but he also knew that being asleep meant Chaz didn't have the kind of control he exercised while awake. And he'd heard those warnings enough to recognise that he wasn't going to be able to settle this quietly.  
  
He pressed his lips against Chaz's forehead. "Hey. You need to wake up, now. Come back to me. Come on, you're dreaming. None of this is real."  
  
' _Are you sure?_ ' the darkness asked, and for the first time Reid became aware of it, not as an absence of light, but as something unto itself.  
  
Chaz jerked awake, headbutting Reid in the teeth and then slamming his nose against Reid's chin, the wings vanishing, mid-fold, in a scattering of dark liquid and bright sparkles. "Holy fuck! Ow! Shit! I'm so sorry!"  
  
"Breathe," Reid offered, tensely, licking his lip to check for blood. "Nightmare. It was just a nightmare."  
  
Chaz slowly found his muscles and convinced them to unclench, finally rolling onto his back and knocking his head on the laptop, dispelling the screensaver. "Ow! I have to stop doing this to myself. I'm getting too old for this shit." He turned his head to look at Reid. "And I don't think that was _just_ anything."  
  
"I woke up first." Reid started with that, something obvious, something he was sure of. "But, you were still dreaming. _We_ were still dreaming. So, I wanted to see if I could make the nightmare stop, without waking you. It almost worked, and then..." He shook his head, rustling the blanket under it. "You're a lot harder to handle, when you're asleep, and I remember what you've always said about the damage you could do, so I woke you up. It wasn't worth the risk to keep trying."  
  
"What did you do? I'm pretty good at remembering nightmares, but that one got blurry near the end. I can't remember what woke me." Chaz sat up enough to push his laptop out of the way, leaving it open for the light as he settled back down, facing Reid. "I'm assuming the blurry part is you, but I remember feeling good, and then the nightmare feeling came back. It's not any one thing, but it's this disgusting combination that's always the same."  
  
"You had wings," Reid said, quietly. "Like last time, except I could see them outside my eyes, too. I figured you were just dreaming too loudly to block out, so when I saw what they were made of, and how much of them was me, I gave them something else to hold. Looking at you was like staring into the sun. And then I couldn't keep up any more. We were standing in a dark room, in the dream, and the darkness had its own agenda -- I'm assuming that was the nightmare trying to reassert itself, because brains do that when they're not done with a thought. Wake up in the middle of one, and you just can't quite shake it for hours..."  
  
"I'd say it isn't me, but we don't know what the hell it is. You woke me up, when you found it, right?"  
  
"I'd already started to wake you up. You're talking about the Anomaly, aren't you?"  
  
Chaz nodded, eyes closed. "I've felt it reach for you, before. I've heard it try to tempt you. But, I always figured I could hold it down for both of us. I forgot I have to sleep, and it doesn't."  
  
"It honestly didn't seem that frightening. It felt like one of those prank calls kids make on Halloween. The wings were a lot harder to handle -- but I suppose those are it, too."  
  
"And me. Sort of. I didn't want them, but they're mine, now. Bit of a white elephant, but I find a use for them sometimes. I don't like them. I don't like using them. I don't like having them. But, the mythology insists. They were a gift."  
  
Reid suddenly realised what Chaz was implying. "That's what you did. That's why you said you could handle all of them."  
  
"Every once in a great while I remind myself why I don't do that." Chaz's eyes stayed closed, and he seemed to fold in on himself a bit, barely moving. "You saw what they can do. I have to see all of it -- know it, feel it, be it -- to use it. I thought it was knowing that made it a weapon, but with Allie... I almost envy her distance, but my job is to know, not to be a weapon."  
  
"They're real." Reid seemed stuck on that point.  
  
"I can't fly, if that's what you're asking. If I knew a little less about aerodynamics, I might be able to, but I'm too smart to believe it should work." Chaz knew that wasn't the question. "Are they real? Well, if 'real' means they can be used to a purpose and have an effect on the people who come into contact with them, then yes. They're as real as radar or the internet. But, they're not physical in any meaningful way. I dragged them through a wall, once, coming through a door that was much too small. And I could feel it, but it didn't stop me, because they're not that kind of real. They're a couple hundred iterations of what I can do -- of the mirror -- all of them aimed just a little differently. I can't control them in any particularly meaningful way. And the Anomaly very much enjoys causing other people pain. Or me. I'm a fair target, if it can't get anyone else."  
  
"And that's why I spent a couple of minutes on the floor." Reid slowly got it. "So, I wouldn't look, and get caught in what they could show me."  
  
"I am, in a word, monstrous. And now you know." Chaz took a shaky breath and extracted himself from Reid's mind. "I'm sorry. I hope this revelation doesn't have to affect the investigation."  
  
"I don't understand. Why would this be any different? This is something I've already accepted that you can do. It's just that you now have a fancy illusion that goes with it." Reid could feel the void in his mind and under his skin, where he'd gotten so accustomed to Chaz taking up space almost invisibly. "What am I missing?"  
  
"It's just me, isn't it?"  
  
"No, I'm pretty sure this would freak a lot of people out pretty badly, but after what we've been through in the last few months, I'm not sure why you think I'd be one of them."  
  
Chaz unfolded a hand, offering his fingers to Reid without actually moving closer, and Reid pressed a palm across them.  
  
"You're colder than I am. Probably because we're on the blanket instead of under it, like the geniuses we are." It was a gentle nudge, and Reid waited to see if Chaz would take it. He half expected to be informed he'd be sleeping on the couch.  
  
"How are you feeling?" Chaz asked, instead. "Besides cold."  
  
"I'm a little worried about you," Reid admitted, leaving out the imposing emptiness that seemed to hang between parts of him he knew were there.  
  
"Are you hungry? Does anything hurt?"  
  
"Are we counting my slowly-swelling lip?"  
  
"More like an ache or a burn somewhere you're not expecting it. You're not dizzy, are you?"  
  
"You're trying to figure out if I've been infected, because of the nightmare," Reid realised. "And no. No symptoms of hypoglycaemia. Any actual anomalous power involved was all you. I've heard you say it -- think it? -- you're the mirror. I'm just the light. All I did was things you've seen me do a dozen times before. All I did was remember."  
  
Chaz turned his face down against the pillow to stifle a laugh. " _Just_ the light. You really don't know how incredible you are. Trauma and exposure, particularly in combination, are ... it almost inevitably leads to the first crack. I keep waiting for you to turn, and here you are just shutting the door in the Anomaly's face like, 'Sorry, we're all out of candy.' You're really not impressed with it, are you?"  
  
"According to your working theory, I should have already cracked. I should be infected, and it should be getting more obvious with time, I assume?"  
  
"That's the theory. Every serious trauma should increase the odds of conversion, but here you are, and that's either incredible luck, or some kind of resistance we haven't even begun to imagine."  
  
Reid ran two fingers from Chaz's palm to his elbow, waiting for an objection. Instead, he got Chaz's hand curled around his forearm. "If all it can show me is things I've already seen, then it doesn't have much of an arsenal."  
  
"It'll tempt you to do things you know are wrong, but are easy and would be satisfying. And the further you follow it down, the worse the suggestions are."  
  
"It's a temptation parable, like any hundred before it. I've had worse ideas without the help." Reid reached up to tuck Chaz's hair behind his ear. "The problem is that it really can't offer me anything I can't have without it. Not anything I actually want. I have a good job, a mostly quiet life -- aside from some unfortunate recent events -- a stable and comfortable home, good friends, someone to love. I have a full life that I enjoy. And yeah, I have nightmares and regrets, but who doesn't? And we've established it's not going to help with those."  
  
"It doesn't generally ask for an invitation," Chaz pointed out, turning his head to press his cheek against Reid's palm, craving the broken connection between them.  
  
"Maybe it just doesn't like me." Reid smiled wryly. "I should be glad I'm not good enough for _something_."  
  
"Wants you, because it can't have you," Chaz teased, and Reid paled at those words.  
  
"It _can't_ have me," he agreed, as some sick inkling of all the ways it could take Langly away from him swam through his head.  
  
"You're really all right with this?" Chaz still looked smaller than he should have. "With me?"  
  
"Chaz, I am just as all right with you as I was before we walked into that building, together. Possibly moreso, in light of what happened." Reid wrapped his fingers loosely in Chaz's hair -- nothing that would hurt if he pulled away, but just a reminder that his hand was still there. "I don't mind what you are. I enjoy your company, your presence, and being your evil twin."  
  
"I'm the evil twin." Chaz rolled his eyes and sighed.  
  
"You're not the one who got arrested for murder."  
  
"That wasn't your fault."  
  
"That was very definitely my fault, but it wasn't my act of murder."  
  
"You were trying to--"  
  
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions, _is it not_?"  
  
They stared at each other in silence, until Chaz withdrew the proposition. "Fine, we're both the evil twin."  
  
"I'm comfortable with that," Reid decided. "And I'm still comfortable with you. With _all_ of you."  
  
"Well..." Chaz failed to suppress a slowly-creeping, somewhat embarrassed smile. "If the Anomaly can't have you, can I?"  
  
"I _have_ been trying to get you _in_ bed, as opposed to just on it, so--"  
  
"Wait. Don't say yes. Not yet." Chaz sat up and closed his laptop, inching off the far end of the bed, so he could leave it on top of a dresser and turn on the bathroom light, for Reid. He came back to the bed and stayed sitting at the foot of it. "I'm going to ask you something, knowing that you've never had a problem saying 'no' to me, before. If I'm asking too much, tell me."  
  
"No, my answer to that still hasn't changed, but if it's something else...?" Reid propped himself up on his elbows, looking down the bed to where Chaz was illuminated by the sliver of light from the bathroom.  
  
"I'd really like it if you could do whatever you did to the wings -- _my_ wings -- while I'm awake. It should be less hard if I'm awake. I'll be trying to help you succeed. If it's not working, I'll put a stop to it." Chaz swallowed. "I just want to see it happen. Just once."  
  
"That's definitely not what I was expecting." Reid blinked, considering the risks. "How dangerous is this going to be?"  
  
"I don't know if it's going to work at all, to be honest. I think I have to be in a certain amount of genuine life-threatening danger to do this, and we're going to skip that part. But, danger to you? It was more dangerous while I was asleep. I can make it _stop_ , if I'm awake."  
  
"You'll see a lot of me," Reid pointed out. "Things I don't want to talk about. Things no one knows. I'm at peace with them, but I'm not sure I'm at peace with sharing them."  
  
"That's the most reasonable sentence I've heard out of you since I woke up."  
  
"But, at the same time, I feel like it's already too late. You're already dreaming one of the seven worst occurrences of my adult life. Had I not tried to resolve the nightmare without waking you, you'd already have seen all of those things."  
  
"You absolutely do not have to do it again."  
  
"But, I will." Reid sounded utterly certain. "This has happened once. It will happen again. And I know enough to wake you, but only if I wake up first. Either way, I know enough to close my eyes and try to change what gets reflected, until one of us can wake up and stop it."  
  
"I wish you were wrong, but you're probably not," Chaz admitted.  
  
"If you can do it," Reid decided, "I'll try again."  
  
"May I...?" Chaz didn't finish the sentence, but Reid could feel the gentle prodding at the door that wasn't there.  
  
"Come back." Reid shifted his weight and held out one hand. "Nothing's changed."  
  
Chaz crawled up his own bed and pulled Reid to him, before he took the final step, letting the first comfort come from Reid's arms around him. And then they were together again, the hollow ache pressed out of his bones, as Reid's honest concern filled him. Concern for _him_. And with it, that same warm calm, that same uncomplicated acceptance. He wondered how long it would take before he lost this, and then even that last bitter hook was swept away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, I lied, it's a whole chapter of angst. Porn's the _next_ chapter.


	23. Chapter 23

"I can't do it," Chaz admitted, still curled up in Reid's arms. "I'm not angry. I'm not afraid. And I never want to be _that_ kind of afraid of you. I have to _want_ to hurt someone."  
  
"We'll have a chance. You'll catch me in it, eventually." Reid's hands gently kneaded Chaz's back through the inevitable sweater.  
  
"I'd rather not." Chaz sighed, his own fingers rubbing little circles against Reid's lower back. "If we're going to do this -- if we're going to get good at it -- I'd really rather it be in a controlled environment. If we break it in the field, we're going to be in a world of shit."  
  
"Chances are, at that point, we're already in a world of shit."  
  
"And that's a point." Chaz tugged Reid's shirt up -- it was already untucked -- and when he didn't feel the slap at his brain, he pressed his hand against bare skin.  
  
"Did you want to go back to sleep?" Reid asked. "Maybe in the right order and more properly dressed for it?"  
  
"I thought maybe we could take a detour at naked, for a bit." Chaz tipped his head back carefully, nipping under Reid's chin. "Let me give you another happy memory to use for ammunition, when the time comes."  
  
"I may have to revisit my prohibition on weapon-themed euphemisms, at this rate," Reid joked, with an unspoken reminder that he needed a little more space if he was going to take anything off.  
  
"Not into the poetic virtues of Lord Manhammer, huh?" Chaz rolled onto his back, already pulling at his sweater, and got it stuck on his shoulders.  
  
Reid reached over and pulled exactly where the sweater was stuck. "I don't mind it in art and literature. I just don't particularly like my own body referred to in certain ways. It brings up a set of expectations that I have no desire to meet."  
  
"Make love, not war?" Chaz asked, sitting up enough to shove the blanket down around him, so he could get under it.  
  
Reid made a small, uncertain sound and stood up to remove his clothes, before he joined Chaz under the blankets. "Something to that effect."  
  
Chaz continued peeling clothes off and tossing them out of the bed, eternally grateful for the warmth of a slept-on blanket. "I used to think I'd meet a pretty girl, fall in love, go for two point five kids and a white picket fence. That was love. That was the ideal relationship. That was the circumstance where I'd take my clothes off in front of another person. I should've given more serious thought to dating another agent, but ..."  
  
"You wanted to leave work at work, and have someone to come home to."  
  
"Works for Brady, most of the time!"  
  
"Isn't Brady married to an ER doctor? I mean, that's a profession with a similar schedule. That's someone who _gets it_."  
  
"And that was it, you know? Finding someone who could handle it. And me. And actually wanted to sleep with me after figuring it all out." Chaz winged a sock in the direction of the hamper, landing it perfectly. "Point is, I kind of get it, wanting to leave it at the door. The expectation of violence stops at the edge of the bed. And the circles I run in, that's not always true, but it's consensual, so it's not my business. I just don't... I can't. There was a time I could. There was a time I was really pretty into it. But, like... months. A blip, more than anything. There were always things that were harder to get that I liked more, and then..."  
  
He didn't have to finish the sentence. Reid knew where that thought ended, and he could taste burning roses. "I can see where that might put a crimp in things. I just never got a taste for it. The whole dynamic just pushes the wrong buttons for me."  
  
"Yeah, I know. I'm sorry."  
  
"So was I."  
  
Chaz held the edge of the blanket up for Reid to join him, waiting until they were close again, skin on skin, before he spoke again. "Still like having my hair pulled. I don't know what that is or why it didn't stop with everything else. Guess I'm grateful, really. Something stayed the same."  
  
"There's always something."  
  
"That was supposed to be an invitation, but then I made the mistake of opening my mouth."  
  
"An invitation to pull your hair?" Reid teased, twisting his fingers into Chaz's hair, waiting for the half of that thought that hadn't arrived yet. He could almost see it. There was some other desire that Chaz was still uncertain about sharing or indulging.  
  
"I want you behind me." The words came out in a single breath, and then Chaz tried to sputter his way through the rest of it. "I want you. To take me. From behind. And it's the first time, and I don't know if I'm going to get through this without flipping out, but it's you, so if there's _any_ chance, this is really it."  
  
"Because you think I'm you enough not to upset anything. You think it won't bother you, as long as you can see it."  
  
Chaz nodded, eyes squeezed shut, Reid's fingers still in his hair. "I promise I'll suck your cock in the shower, if this doesn't work."  
  
"I'm a lot more worried about you than I am about whether I have an orgasm."  
  
"Okay, then let me give you an orgasm because it will assuage my only slightly rational guilt."  
  
"Completely irrational."  
  
"Fight me."  
  
"Not in bed."  
  
At that, Chaz laughed, grateful for the ridiculousness they'd verged straight into. "So, opinions?"  
  
"Promise me you're not going to hurt me."  
  
"I can't." Chaz opened his eyes. "But, if I start to slide, you'll see it coming. It's going to be incredibly obvious."  
  
Reid nodded. "I'll take that."  
  
Chaz didn't respond, but the mental space they shared filled with awkward gratitude and fondness, a reflection of their duality, an absolute wonder that any of this worked as well as it had, so far, and Reid answered with a kiss, curling his fingers in that way he knew Chaz liked, even as the reflected sensation made him dizzy. He pulled harder, letting Chaz's sensations fill him, letting them drown out his own, as he moved down -- lips, tongue, neck, moving his mouth in response to desires that almost felt like his own. And if it were his skin, wouldn't he want it like this? Almost. Close enough, for now.  
  
As Chaz rolled onto his back, pulling Reid onto him, he took advantage of the momentary space between their lips. "I never thought it could be like this. I never imagined that what we have could be possible."  
  
"Technically, it's not. I mean, this is, to borrow a phrase from Langly, 'woo woo freaky cryptid shit'. It's not really a reasonable relationship expectation," Reid teased, stretching for the lube.  
  
"I could've tried this at any time, but I didn't want to know. I didn't want to take that last privacy away from someone I wanted to be with. And I didn't really want to live with knowing some things, because let me tell you, I saw a lot of things before I made it out of the hospital, and most of them weren't flattering." Chaz closed his eyes and let himself see as Reid did. Speaking of things that weren't flattering, he'd never quite gotten used to looking at himself for long, and stretched out like this, all bare, raw edges, he looked every inch what he was -- broken and scarred, never quite right to begin with. But, what he read with shame, Reid saw with pride -- look, you lived; look, you won; look, you're still here and I can see how you got here. There was no pity in Reid's gaze, no disgust, only relief and desire. Someone understood -- maybe not all of it, but enough to matter, enough that Reid really wasn't afraid of him _at all_.  
  
"I'm not particularly flattering, either," Reid murmured, hands caressing Chaz's skin in ways he liked the feedback from.  
  
"Spencer, no. You're not wondering when I'm going to die." Chaz's eyes sprung open with the vehemence of that declaration.  
  
"Yes, I am. But, it's background noise. It's not personal. I like you, therefore..." Reid shrugged and flicked his thumb in a way that made Chaz shiver.  
  
"That's the difference. It's background noise. It's not -- you're not looking at me, really seeing me for the first time, and having doubts that I'll survive the night. You're not trying to be supportive and wondering when I'm going to turn into a serial killer. You're not horrified to see me shirtless. I mean, I was a little thinner, then, but not _that_ much." Chaz reached up and ran his fingers through Reid's hair. "And you have the most incredible control of your thoughts that I have ever seen."  
  
"It's pathological," Reid admitted, drawing back a bit. "The control is pathological, but I have no interest in altering it. At this point in my life, I need it. I can't afford to be anything else."  
  
"In which case, it's not pathological. It's still serving a purpose, and someone should smack your shrink with a newspaper. Trust me, I do know what I'm talking about."  
  
"You have a PhD in abnormal psych. I remember." Reid smiled wryly. "And _I'm_ the academic."  
  
"Hey, I did both of mine concurrently, and then I _stopped_. You're the nutter who kept going. That's the technical term, 'nutter', because I've got a PhD, and I say so." Chaz laughed, squirming as Reid poked him exactly where it would be most annoying without being painful. A blink, and then: "No one has ever touched me the way you do."  
  
"Because they can't see it. Because you haven't given them the 'woo woo freaky cryptid power' to know what you want as soon as you're aware of it." Reid leaned down and nipped at Chaz's lip. "And that's the technical term, because my boyfriend's a specialist in cryptozoology and he says so."  
  
The word hit them both at the same time, and neither could figure out whose thought it had been first.  
  
"Ew!" Chaz recoiled as if he could sink deeper into the bed.  
  
Reid's face twisted in horror. "And now I'm going to put that thought in a box, and we're never going to open it again."  
  
"Pandora's box of cryptob--"  
  
"If you don't say it, we can pretend that thought never crossed our mind." Reid shuddered.  
  
"Quick, say something sexy."  
  
"How about if I just..." Reid closed his eyes and took a deep breath, calling to mind his favourite intensely erotic memories of Langly.  
  
Beneath him, Chaz writhed. "Does it really feel like that, when he...?"  
  
"The memory doesn't do it justice," Reid purred, letting his fingers chase paths of sensation across Chaz's skin.  
  
"I want you." Chaz's head tipped back as he swallowed. "I want you to make me feel just like that."  
  
"I think that might require the addition of Langly, but I think I can get pretty close." Reid eased his hand between Chaz's thighs, fingers tempting and teasing. "... How close do you want me?"  
  
"Bury yourself in me, body and mind. I want you deep." Chaz rubbed his foot down the back of Reid's leg, trying to relax as those fingers pressed into him.  
  
"If you still want me behind you, the answer's still yes, but I want you looking at me just a little longer, before we try that."  
  
"If this works, I'll bolt a mirror to that wall so I can look at you _while_ we do that."  
  
Reid took his time, his fingers exactly where Chaz wanted them at almost every moment. He let himself sink into the sensation, as if he were fingering himself open, and as that thought crossed their mind, Chaz snatched at it, returning it with a few seconds visual of Reid doing exactly that -- sprawled on that leather sofa in the afternoon light, pyjama pants shoved halfway to his knees, fingerfucking himself with Langly's name on his lips. And that struck each of them a little differently, Chaz tensing and rocking his hips, Reid returning with the image of Langly leaning down over him, pinning his knees to his chest, and using his fingers as a guide to push in, hard and dripping.  
  
Chaz made a frustrated noise, writhing once again. "Spencer, you fucking _tease_!"  
  
"That's what everyone says, but I always come through, in the end."  
  
"I'm going to be so disappointed if you make me come like this, and that will be the first time in my life I'm ever going to have been disappointed with an orgasm. It's not an experience I really want."  
  
"Are you rushing me?" Reid smiled smugly and Chaz nudged him to the side.  
  
"Yes."  
  
Reid wiped his hand clean and got a condom, as Chaz stretched and rolled over, folding a pillow to prop up his hips.  
  
"Is that wise?" Reid asked, taking in the pose. He'd thought they'd be spooned, something that gave Chaz room to pull away from him, if things didn't go well.  
  
"Is any of this?" Chaz folded his arms and rested his head on them, watching Reid. "It's what I want."  
  
Reid understood at least some of the half-formed thoughts that passed between them, and he took the tin of salve and the lube with him as he moved to kneel across Chaz's legs, opening the salve first, and rubbing it along the edges of the scars. Chaz seemed to melt under him, despite the initial discomfort, the flash of quickly-fading panic. Reid kneaded the flesh, the skin under his hands more malleable than it looked, but the salve didn't seem to soak in, and he flashed a wordless inquiry at Chaz.  
  
"You remember the rain? It's like that. I can't reach, so it takes a while."  
  
And Reid knew exactly what he was talking about, in the way that even after so many years on the coast, he still got nervous when it rained more than two inches in a week. Some things were just ingrained. He ran his fingers along the mountainous ridges of Chaz's back -- the scars, his spine -- and found the floodplains with his thumbs. Beneath him, Chaz moaned, long and low, stretching his shoulders.  
  
"No, it's not wise, but I like it."  
  
"Calming, because you don't _have to_ trust me."  
  
"Because I can see. Because I can make it stop." Chaz realised his skin still reeked of nightmare panic, then wondered why Reid hadn't reacted to it, but maybe he had. "But, I do. I do trust you because I know when I shouldn't."  
  
"Good." Reid leaned down and pressed a kiss to the back of Chaz's neck, just to test the edges of Chaz's tolerance, before this got any more serious.  
  
"You're still not sure about this," Chaz murmured, picking up the caution.  
  
"You said it. You haven't done this before. Better to go slowly and avoid problems, later."  
  
"A considerate lover! Be still, my heart!" Even joined as they were, it was impossible to tell how much of that was sarcasm. Chaz suspected it might not have been, unsure even of himself, not that he'd bring it up.  
  
"Is that what we are? Lovers?" Reid's hands caressed Chaz's scars, the ridges rough against his palms.  
  
"Well, it's not a romance, is it?"  
  
"No, it's something much more selfish."  
  
"Because there's not two of us. It's more like one and a half. Romance relies on a certain amount of unknowing, on faith."  
  
"But, we're running out of unknowns. Evil twins, both evil."  
  
"Clones raised in different environments. Selfcest."  
  
"In which case, this is just extremely complicated masturbation."  
  
"Hey, when have I ever been easy?" Chaz laughed, lifting his hips to press against Reid. "... Don't answer that."  
  
"Impatient, tonight..." Reid teased, sliding one hand further down between them.  
  
"I want you. I want this with you. I want to be part of you when we do this." Chaz couldn't quite see far enough over his shoulder, in this position. "I want you inside me. All the way."  
  
Reid shivered as the desire washed over him, and he met it with flesh, sinking into Chaz's body in exactly the way he was wanted. The angle was the first focus for both of them, the difference in the experience, and Reid took control as Chaz stalled, letting himself slip into the patterns and motions Langly liked.  
  
"Oh, fuck, Spencer..." Chaz clutched at the pillow with both hands, panting against his forearm.  
  
"Too much?" Reid's fingers traced down Chaz's spine.  
  
Chaz swallowed before he tried to answer, looking dazed. "I think I get why Langly likes it like this." He tipped his hips a little further back. " _Oh_ , just like this. Let me show you."  
  
Reid slid back in, mentally and physically, and the pleasure splashed across the inside of his head, echoes of himself inside himself, which was going to be a little nauseating if he thought about it too long. But, Chaz was definitely part of him, now. 'Complicated masturbation,' he thought, and one of them smiled. He brought his mouth to one of the scars, kissing and licking right where the skin regained sensation. This was going to end quickly -- it always did, when it was just the two of them. Maybe ten minutes that felt like half of forever. The human body wasn't meant to handle this kind of reduplication and amplification, but it did a bang-up job trying.  
  
The little, muffled sound Chaz made was one Reid could have identified even without the connection between them lighting his nerves on fire. They teetered on the edge, together, knowing they could draw apart in a moment's thought, but preferring to press closer and tighter together, to feel the echoes and resonances join into incredible and improbable sensations. Lost for words, they threw themselves to those sensations, both of them rutting into their own body, into each other's bodies, the ache, the throb, the grating need for more, harder, deeper, _oh right there_!  
  
And then the panic sliced across the back of Reid's eyes and he knew it wasn't his. Revulsion came on with talons, and he couldn't draw back fast enough from it, from Chaz. Around him, the wings exploded from Chaz's back, like ribbons of light and gore, gleaming and glittering dangerously, the reflections they bore no part of him, but an inescapable repetition of another place and time. It was as if he'd accidentally torn open a festering wound, and he closed his eyes and curled close against Chaz's back in self-defence.  
  
And then he remembered he was supposed to be defending them both, and his mind uncoiled, re-occupying all the space Chaz would let him have. He was the light, Chaz had told him, and Reid finally understood the power inherent in that, when the danger isn't the darkness, but a reflection of the horrors behind it. A reflection, a shadow, a disappearing act -- it was something Chaz never quite explained, never in ways that would lay bare the mythology beneath, but Reid got it, now. It was a matter of redirected light. And now he was the light, and it was on him to allow that redirection, but not a misdirection, to let the memories be reflected back, but not let them be turned into nightmares.  
  
Reid tried to find memories he and Chaz shared, to start with -- breakfasts they'd shared with Langly, conversations in the office, befuddling Hafidha and Langly with increasingly bizarre stories about Las Vegas. A joking argument about Langly's pancakes caught -- Reid could feel it like a fire set with a magnifying glass -- and he leaned harder on memories with Langly. Oh, that one wasn't even his, but he could appreciate it, amplify it. Langly's long legs and the ruffle of a white skirt, and Reid felt it as they both shifted, untainted desire winding around their collective nerves.  
  
But, he could already feel the edges of that one crumbling, a rejection of the one-sided sexuality of it. He fell back to moments of contentment -- closed cases, warm afternoons, other people's birthdays. As long as he kept his eyes closed, it was less bad. There were less places for it to get in. But, that also meant he could only push back _through_ Chaz, and he wondered if he lost something like that. It was always harder to shoot around a hostage, as it were.  
  
Chaz felt the weight and warmth lift from his back, the agonising shame as Reid opened his eyes and saw, _knew_ what had happened, knew his fears and his failures. And then the slivers of Reid's terror and uncertainty, dread and regret. He could see the blood dripping onto the bed, pooling instead of soaking in. Every puddle another reflection. Why did he even try any more? He'd never be free of this. And really, with the way he and Reid were joined, now, could he ever be sure the wings were the only loathsome gift The Relative had left him? Had he taken more than he'd have been permitted? And if he had, would Reid ever be able to tell him?  
  
He heard the sound, but didn't place it until he felt Reid trying to blot away the blood with tissues, trying to wipe the illusion from his back, gently prodding the edges of his scars as if checking for infection. And as Reid's eyes and hands moved up, a swath of one wing could see only his honest concern and a hint of fascination. A gentle twist straightening the way one razor-sharp feather lay, and that should never have been twisted in the first place, because it wasn't that kind of real. Warm memories caught and gleamed, and he could almost hear the click and pop of horrors torn out and cast aside, shattering into dust to be swept under the carpet until next time. _~~one two one two and through and through~~_  
  
_Stained glass in the sun_ , Chaz thought, watching the change happen, through Reid's eyes. Not bloody shards of mirror-glass, strung together with raw sinew and brittle bone, but hundreds of perfectly-shaped wine-red prisms, reflecting, diffracting, filled with light. And his first instinct was to reject it. He would not become _that_ angel. He would not accept the shape forced on him, the mythology of it, the revolting corruption of a mystery cult gone too big and too far. And personally, the blatant embrace of his own grotesque origins. But, this wasn't quite what The Relative had seen in him, either. But, he didn't have to choose -- he wasn't even sure this was an option, independent of Reid's interference. And if it was, oh what strange evolution would it truly be?  
  
"Spencer?" The first word Chaz had spoken in a little too long.  
  
"Hm?" Reid's focus was still on slowly taking and holding ground, for all he'd said he preferred to leave the metaphors for violence at the bedroom door, the stakes changed when something was actually at risk.  
  
"It really doesn't like you." Chaz laughed weakly and folded the wings until they vanished. "But, I do. Thanks. _Really_."  
  
"I'm sorry." Reid finally moved to the side, sweeping things out of the way, fingers taking hold of the condom he'd already slipped out of.  
  
"Sorry for wh--" Chaz yelped in surprise as Reid pulled the condom out to dispose of it.  
  
"That, at least. Also whatever I did that ended in that flashback."  
  
"I knew that was coming." Chaz rolled onto his side and raised an arm for Reid to rejoin him. "The flashback. That's the argument I was expecting to have. Just not that... vividly, violently. And maybe not in the middle of an orgasm, and let me tell you I'm going to be pissed about that for the rest of my life. Not at you. _Or me_."  
  
Reid accepted the invitation, curling up under Chaz's chin, like he did with Langly. "Was that what you wanted to see?"  
  
"Was what--? Oh. Yeah, actually. And that was incredibly weird, and I really want to talk about it, but not right now." Chaz wrapped himself around Reid. "Right now, I want to fall asleep wrapped around my incredibly sexy evil twin, who I'm hoping can stay awake until that happens. If not, I'll step out and we can sleep like normal people."  
  
"Take a few more of my favourite memories and maybe you'll pass out from exhaustion," Reid teased, nudging back the first time Chaz had passed out under him in the chair.  
  
Chaz groaned and pressed his face against Reid's hair. "You're taking this surprisingly well."  
  
"Ask Langly about the last time I had a flashback serious enough that he heard about it." Reid cleared his throat. "Let's just say I'm sympathetic."  
  
"Oooh, speaking of Langly and exhaustion, what about the time he passed out on you?"  
  
"I'm not the angle you want, if you're looking to knock yourself out with a memory."  
  
"So, maybe you'll have to demonstrate."  
  
"I'm probably going to fall asleep before I'm in any condition to do that," Reid admitted, the adrenaline finally letting go of him. "That was pretty incredible before it went bad. You've given me a whole new appreciation for my penis, thank you."  
  
Chaz snorted. "It was pretty incredible after it went bad, too. I've never seen that happen."  
  
"Statistically, it's not likely you would. You've said you're not using the wings often. What are the chances that you'd run into someone who understood you well enough to even try, in the sort of situation in which you'd be driven to bring them out? I'll admit, if I'd encountered them in that context first, I'd have been just as useless."  
  
"But, you didn't, and you're not, and that's what matters."  
  
"Because I'm your evil twin."  
  
And Chaz knew he was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Completely unedited, because I just want it off my desk.


	24. Chapter 24

Chaz ignored his phone when the text came in. He woke up just enough to realise it was a text, and that it was also Saturday, and there was absolutely no legitimate reason to care, if his phone wasn't actually _ringing_. That wouldn't be work. That would be Duke having some weird-ass thought at hungover in the morning, and he could have that conversation later, at a time when he was not naked in bed with the most beautiful part of himself -- sunlight and gardens, everything in neatly labelled boxes, and an utterly dreamy six percent body fat. He only wished he could be that warm, wished he could get himself back up over three, but it sure as hell wasn't going to happen right now. Still, he envied the way Reid's skin fit as he ran his hands over it and went back to sleep.  
  
The next time he woke, it was to the very best part of a dream that he and Reid hadn't been sharing, to the way Reid's legs suddenly tensed around his thigh, and the warm wet splash that ran down from his hip. He ran his fingers down Reid's back, until he got an inquisitive sound.  
  
"We should probably get up. My stomach thinks my throat is cut."  
  
Reid snorted and rolled onto his back, rubbing the crud out of the corners of his eyes before he tried to open them. "I should get a shower. Why am I still wet?"  
  
"That's not 'still'. Promise." Chaz offered an awkward smile. "Hand me my phone? There's a text I've been ignoring."  
  
Reid groaned and fumbled for the phone, eventually getting a grip on it and handing it over. " _Definitely_ a shower."  
  
"Skip the shower. Pants. Now." Chaz sat up and batted the blankets away, on his feet before Reid finished registering that he was moving. "Langly's downstairs waiting for us."  
  
" _What?_ " Reid clipped the nightstand with his shoulder, trying to sit up and get out of bed at the same time. "Where are my--"  
  
"Wear mine. It's not like anyone but us can tell the difference." Chaz tossed him clean underwear. "I'm not even sure we can tell the difference, half the time."

* * *

"Sorry," Chaz said, grabbing a box of donuts and picking up Langly's legs so he could sit under them. "Rough night. Had a nervous breakdown and passed out on your hot boyfriend."  
  
"If by 'hot', you mean still sweaty and feeling disgustingly unwashed, I'll own that," Reid complained, pulling up Hafidha's chair so he could sit near Langly's head. "What are you doing here?"  
  
"One? By 'hot', he means smokin' fucking set my dick on fire attractive, which I am intensely aware of without even looking away from the screen. God, you smell good, and it's really distracting." Langly tipped his head back onto the arm of the couch and pointed at his lips until Reid kissed him. "And two? I have a fake address and a spiffy new motorcycle. Nobody knows where the hell I came from or where I went, and I'm very sure of that."  
  
"Okay, that's a how, but it's not a why," Chaz prodded, sugar drifting across Langly's jeans as he bit into donut. "Not to say I'm not utterly thrilled that I've got a hot blond bringing me donuts on a Saturday morning, but..."  
  
"Hafs needed to get some sleep, so I said I'd take over Bollinger. We set that up last night. I figured if she was going to be working all night, I should show up with enough donuts for all of us. Of course, I can only fit eight dozen in the saddlebags, but I figured that would at least get us all through breakfast and maybe until lunch is ready."   
  
"Do we know anything about Bollinger, yet?" Reid asked, pushing the chair back a little so he could fold his arms behind Langly's head on the arm of the couch and squint at the screen. Two inches closer, and he could probably read it. Not that he was sure that would actually help his understanding at all.  
  
"We know the email was checked by someone using the goddamn free wifi at Starbucks." Langly rolled his eyes. "And I had to go through some shit to even get that far. Someone is not fucking around. On the other hand, someone is also too stupid to realise that the time to pull some shit like that is when it's _busy_."  
  
Chaz smiled slowly. "Credit card?"  
  
Langly nodded. "Credit card. Belle Frain, who is a prison reform activist young enough not to realise the kind of hole she just stuck her foot in. From the response she sent, I can tell she's trying to get evidence of you--" He reached over his head and poked Reid in the forehead. "--doing something scandalous. Like, the kind of scandalous that's going to get convictions overturned, not the kind of scandalous that obviously went on here, last night."  
  
"That _is_ that kind of scandalous," Reid reminded him.  
  
"It's probably not. It's the kind of scandalous that might get us fired, though." Chaz shrugged. "You, anyway. They can't fire me. They can't fire me, and I can't _quit_." The spectre of Idlewood hung in the air a moment. But, no. Not over this. Falkner wouldn't allow it. Reyes, he might not have trusted, some days, but Falkner wouldn't allow it.  
  
"That's fucked up." Langly said it for all of them.  
  
"Bollinger." Reid changed the subject back.  
  
" _Frain_ ," Langly corrected. "She's paying him to come up with some filthy exposé, with photos to match. Digging through her work now, and she's pretty passionate, but, man, I read it and I just think she's young. She doesn't know when she's being bullshitted. At this point in my career I can spot bullshit a mile away, in the dark, and she's just... Like, I know what she's getting at, but these aren't the cases for it. She's got a bad case of pretty face with a sob story, and we all know what happened to Byers."  
  
"Tell me she's not a murder groupie," Chaz groaned from the other end of the couch.  
  
"Can't tell yet. I'm good, but I'm not as fast as he is." Langly tipped his head back to indicate Reid.  
  
"Don't read it. Just pull it. Give me the data," Reid volunteered. "Grab everything that looks relevant, and I'll go through it, myself."  
  
"Nope." Chaz shook his head. "You're the victim. You're not touching it. I don't want to watch you trying to wipe your grubby fingerprints off the evidence in court."  
  
"Also? It's ..." Langly squinted at something visible only to him. "... about fourteen hours until your birthday, and you and I are walking away from all of this for a whole day, and Bollinger and his little friends aren't invited."  
  
Chaz leaned in and tried to look cute. He figured he could at least manage adorably pathetic.  
  
Langly pointed. "No." He looked up over the top of the monitor. "You had him last night. I get him tonight. The two of you have to work on Monday, and isn't your birthday Wednesday, anyway? Take Thursday off. We'll do something exotic. All of us. As long as we get some work done on the plane, nobody's going to say shit, and you know it."  
  
"Wait, wait, what is this? Plans for my birthday, and you didn't _ask me_?" Reid looked horrified.  
  
"I promised your mom." Langly tipped his head back and smiled. "You knew what you were getting into. Nice restaurant, fancy hotel, yes I bought sheets, because I know you that well."  
  
"And how exactly is Bollinger not invited?" Reid's voice rose a register. "You remember last time!"  
  
"He's not invited because it's in _Oregon_ , and I don't think he can pull tickets out of his ass, fast enough. Besides, private charter, on a corporate account. Nobody knows we're going." Langly's smile turned smug. "I mean, I mentioned I've been doing this for thirty years, right? This is the kind of shit other people used to pull on us, and most of the time, I'll be honest, it worked. And if it didn't it was because I was already so far up their ass they couldn't look at a telephone without me knowing."  
  
" _Oregon?_ " Reid looked stunned. "On a Sunday? With no warning? Wha-- How? This-- You can't just spring this on someone! On me! You can't just spring this on me!"  
  
"You don't want to go to Oregon, we'll go somewhere else." Langly shrugged.  
  
"It's not about where! It's -- This is the absolutely last minute! I didn't tell anyone I would be leaving town! What if I get called in for a case?"  
  
"Then they're getting me, instead," Chaz volunteered, and Reid shot him an exasperated look.  
  
"What if I already had something planned?"  
  
"Yeah, but... you don't. I checked." Langly sighed, reaching up to put a hand on Reid's cheek. "Look, all this would've been arranged properly and in advance, and we'd have talked about it for a week, but I couldn't figure out what fucking day it was until yesterday, and you had to go back to work, and I spent it _sleeping_. And eating. Lots of eating. I can now definitely say Byers wouldn't kick me out of bed for getting crumbs in it."  
  
Chaz coughed and choked as a laugh intersected the powdered sugar on a donut.  
  
Reid blinked slowly as the week came back to him. Had it only been a week? A week ago, today, he'd been in New Hampshire, in the snow. "It's been less than a week. And you're-- And I'm--" He sighed and pressed a hand over his face. "I'm so glad that you're still alive. I just really needed things to be normal, for a little while. Boring, even. And now Bollinger, again. And you just... you have to stop doing things like this without _asking me_!"  
  
"Yeah, okay, maybe I got a little ahead of myself. I was just thinking I had to do it now, or we wouldn't have the time. Tell me to cancel it, and I'll do it. I meant to take you away for the whole weekend. That's what I meant to tell you over dinner when you got back, but then... I was thinking we'd take a real vacation -- you, me, somewhere sunny."  
  
"A bottle of three hundred spf," Chaz teased, and Langly offered a response that consisted of one finger.  
  
"I love you. I'm sorry. Let's go to Oregon." Reid pressed his lips to Langly's forehead. He wasn't wrong, and he wouldn't say he was wrong, but this was an appalling confluence of events, and Langly had done his best with it, and the least he could do was avoid being an ass about the whole thing.  
  
"I'll go to Hawaii. You can totally take me to Hawaii." Chaz pointed at himself. "Just... not in the middle of the week."  
  
"Hawaii for Christmas?" Langly suggested, and Reid groaned.  
  
"Not Christmas. Skip the holidays. Holidays are statistically likely to be trigger points for serial killers and mass murderers."  
  
"Having had the misfortune to be born on a holiday, I'm extremely aware that you're right, and I hate it," Chaz agreed, taking one more donut before he leaned forward and put the box back on the coffee table. Eight dozen donuts, but there were only so many he could eat in a row.  
  
"What _are_ we doing for yours?" Reid asked. "I mean, we have to work, and I'm apparently going away this weekend..."  
  
"You want to help me build a twenty-seven part cake that we're going to have to assemble in the break room?"  
  
"You're serious, aren't you?" Reid looked mildly concerned. "You should know that I can't bake."  
  
"Ehh, I got that part. It's the putting it together part that might end up needing more hands than I have and most of a box of toothpicks."  
  
"Non-dairy frosting," Langly muttered.  
  
"I'm not going to be eating that much of it!" Reid protested.  
  
"Off the _cake_ , maybe." Langly tipped his head back.  
  
"It's probably going to be non-dairy anyway." Chaz shrugged thoughtfully. "A traditional buttercream's not going to stand up to that many hours unrefrigerated, and I really don't want to spend my birthday mopping a gallon of melted frosting off the breakroom floor."  
  
Reid snorted, suddenly. "Your birthday's Halloween. We should show up as each other. You take my desk; I'll take yours..."  
  
Chaz squinted up the couch. "Lighten my hair and bronze you just a little, and we'll be indistinguishable. Except the part where I'm still taller."  
  
Langly grinned. "Lifts."  
  
"And because we've only got a brain and a half between us, I'm pretty sure there are no questions we can't both answer," Chaz pointed out.  
  
"This is the worst idea I think we've had yet." Reid's lips tightened against a laugh. "Falkner's going to kill us."  
  
Chaz waved a hand. "I'll make sure we don't get in too much trouble. Yes, the correct way."  
  
"We have to switch back if either of us gets a case. I don't want anyone thinking I'm you _in the field_."  
  
"Absolutely."  
  
One corner of Reid's mouth tipped up. "Let's do it."  
  
"Not to break up a good time, but I've got something on Frain." Langly shot a look at Chaz, realising he wasn't holding his laptop, so there was nowhere to pass the files to. "I've been going through what she's been writing, and there's a lot of people, a lot of stories, but there's a recent one that keeps showing up ... I'm pretty sure this is all about the same person, but there's no name attached. A woman being prosecuted for a number of murders -- that's what it says, 'a number' -- that she was framed for, when she refused to sleep with an unnamed FBI agent."  
  
Reid recoiled, blinking. "Who the _hell_?"  
  
"A number... do we know if it's serial or mass?" Chaz asked. "That would cut it down, but a woman already cuts it down. How many women commit multiple homicides that aren't family killings? Actually, kind of a lot, but they're not your cases, they're mine, which skews the numbers. How many non-anomalous women..."  
  
"Not that many," Reid admitted. "Suicide bombings or children, usually. Do we know if the victims were adults?"  
  
"Interstate, so probably? Either way, even if they're not, it's not what you're looking for. The defence seems to be that the method of killing was inconsistent and the cases aren't actually related, which feeds right into the thing about it being a set-up." Langly stared through the screen, looking puzzled.  
  
"Inconsistent cause of death means it's not one of mine," Chaz volunteered. "Well... probably. There was that one time, but that was once and he's dead. Even if it is one of mine, it was never actually our case."  
  
"I'm... this doesn't sound like mine. The only thing we've had recently with a woman was Narcisse, and the charges there revolve around stealing classified information, trying to blow up a government building, and breaking into my apartment and trying to kill us." Reid shook his head. "If nothing else sticks, that last one will. And last I heard, her defence wasn't a defence at all, it was just trying to drag us down with her by proving he's actually Richard Langly, a dead hacker with a long history of doing unspeakable things to government systems, and therefore I should lose my clearance because I'm sleeping with him, not to mention whatever charges may still be pending, because there's no statute of limitations on computer crimes."  
  
"... And killing every woman who ever banged Kimmy Belmont," Langly pointed out, tipping his head back, again, to look up at Reid.  
  
Reid shook his head again. "She wasn't charged with those. Not yet, anyway. She's recanted, and there's no evidence actually linking her to the crimes. They'll probably get tacked on at the last minute, or she'll end up making a deal to plead to something else for having them dropped. Of everything, those are the weakest, and they're entirely dependent on her actually admitting why she tried to kill _us_ , at the very least, which she's not going to. No one on the defence team is stupid enough to let her on the stand. Right now, she's still just pushing conspiracy theories, every time someone talks to her."  
  
"Okay, but? She's the only interstate serial-murdering woman you've arrested recently."  
  
"I didn't even arrest her!"  
  
"Bet you that's not how she remembers it." Langly raised his eyebrows and tipped his head.  
  
"She's definitely got a grudge." Chaz grabbed the donuts again and turned sideways on the couch, one foot on the floor, the other one on the back of the couch, Langly's feet to either side of him. "And she's definitely got a this kind of grudge. 'Drag you down with her'? That's exactly what this is; it's just another angle."  
  
"The charges are still wrong," Reid argued, finally reaching for a donut from the box next to Langly. "Two counts of attempted murder and assaulting a federal agent, sure, but not multiple murders. Maybe one, if they've managed to make a decent case for Alondra Metcalfe. I haven't actually checked since we left for New Hampshire."  
  
"Yet." Langly rolled his eyes. "You said it yourself. She hasn't been charged with them _yet_. We all know she did it, and we know she'll be charged."  
  
"Yeah, but saying she's already been charged with them is not that bright, if she hasn't been." Chaz licked cream off the corner of his lips. "Any reasonable journalist or activist could and would check that -- it's public information. I mean, if your subject's lying about that, what else is she lying about?"  
  
"I think maybe we're not dealing with a reasonable activist. Like Frank says, she's _young_. She seems pretty impressionable, too. She's got passion and drive, but I'm not sure she's fact-checking very well, if at all." Reid looked down at Langly. "That sound right to you?"  
  
"Yeah, pretty much. You know who else that sounds like? Girlfriend number one, now dead, the file clerk."  
  
"Metcalfe?" Reid stared into space for a moment. "She's doing it again, isn't she? Find an impressionable young woman in a position she can exploit, make promises she might even be able to keep, and spin everything so she looks good right up until she does something she can't excuse. I need you looking at the guards, staff, community volunteers. She's got someone inside, too, if this is really her. She's going to make herself indispensable to whoever is currently in power, in every sense of the word, and then she's going to start taking control."  
  
"I'm calling Penny," Langly declared. "She worked it the first time; she can get the basic information, now, and that's gonna cover us, later, when it has to look like we came at this the other way. And you and I are going to get on a plane and go to Oregon, where there's not some trash-rag writer up our asses."  
  
Chaz laughed, holding up a hand as Reid and Langly stared at him. " _You're_ calling someone a trash-rag writer?"  
  
"Hey, _fuck you_ , I work for a legitimate publication that happens to occasionally debunk Elvis sightings! Thirty years of blood, sweat, and tears, and a whole lot of running and screaming, thank you, because you know what I'm not actually trained for? Getting chased around by people with guns! Jesus christ, one of my best friends got killed for _having_ the information he sent us. I watched a man recover from inoperable brain cancer. I was running around after people like us, like you and me and Hafs, when you were still learning to ride a bicycle. So, yeah, Henry Bollinger is a pissant trash-rag writer and he can kiss Frohike's hairy ass, because he's not getting that close to mine."  
  
"And let that serve as a reminder of how much of your mind I didn't get into." Chaz had both hands up, now, defensive. "You didn't want me looking at your past, so I didn't. At all. And I didn't want to throw up any flags by suddenly reaching for back-issues of the newspaper your former self was connected to, right after I started spending a lot of time around you, either. Spencer trusted you and that was enough for me."  
  
"You really didn't know, did you?" Reid blinked. "I mean, I'm in the awkward position of having walked in knowing most of it, and the rest came out in the initial Vanity investigation, when we started looking at people she'd known."  
  
"I really didn't know. The handful of references I could find just skimming search results made it look like a trashy tabloid. Aliens and Elvis."  
  
"You don't get mailed to Puerto Vallarta chasing organ smugglers over _aliens and Elvis_ ," Langly huffed, kicking Chaz gently in the shoulder and leaving an obvious shoeprint. "I miss chasing Elvis. Those weren't really profitable, but they're the closest thing to holidays we really got."  
  
"You _sure_ you didn't know Duke?"  
  
" _Everybody_ knew Sol Todd. Do you even know how famous this dude really is? But, we never met. I'm pretty sure he's never heard of us." Langly rolled his eyes and crossed his feet on Chaz's shoulder. "Well, obviously, he's heard of me _now_ , but not like _that_."  
  
"... If I pull the Vanity file, while you're gone, I'll have an excuse to look. 'Who the hell is this Richard Langly guy, anyway?'" Chaz smiled, slyly. "And I have an excuse to be looking at Vanity, if we think Narcisse is trying something that now includes photos of me and Hafs. In fact, it would be a really bad idea for me not to look, at this point. I'll get in touch with Garcia, while you're away, see if we can't get this sorted out before you get back."  
  
"You can't. But, thanks for trying." Langly reached up and ran his fingers along the underside of Reid's jaw. "Hey, you want to stop off at your place and pick up some of your own clothes, before we go?"  
  
"How did you--?" Reid looked down at himself.  
  
"Your sweater like that is brown. His is red."  
  
"I can't believe you pay that much attention to my wardrobe."  
  
"I don't. I just take it off you a lot."  
  
"That's... probably true," Reid admitted, eyes squeezing shut. "And if we don't have someone following us, we probably shouldn't go anywhere near my apartment, or we'll probably get someone. I don't think I'm going to be wearing much, this weekend, anyway."  
  
"I'd say wash my clothes before you give them back but I doubt you're going to get anything on them that I wouldn't have." Chaz wiped powdered sugar off his hand onto Langly's jeans.  
  
"I'll wash them anyway. The idea of returning anything in that condition is just... I'll wash them." Reid's eyes rounded as something occurred to him. "Wait, you showed up on a motorcycle."  
  
"And I brought a spare helmet, in case someone else decides to run us off the road. Doubt it, though. Nobody's got eyes on us, again, yet."  
  
"Let's go to Oregon, before that changes," Reid decided, still looking a little nervous about the idea. Still, better Langly than Chaz, as far as his stomach was concerned.


	25. Chapter 25

"You know, growing up, this was what I thought the FBI was like -- a bunch of people in suits hanging out in dark rooms at all hours," Rossi joked, taking what had become his seat in Garcia's office during the Vanity investigation.

"Pleased to meet you again, Agent Rossi." Chaz offered his hand, watching as Rossi spotted the scars at his wrist, but shook anyway.

"Villette, right? How's Reid been treating you?"

"It's been an absolute pleasure working with Agent Reid. Your team's lucky to have him, but I'd absolutely trade you a month of pastries if you'd send him down the hall for real. You're probably using that brain, though." Chaz stretched and instinctively took Reid's established seat atop a short file cabinet.

"So, I think Frank's right." Garcia turned around with a cup of coffee in her hand. "He spent the morning figuring out who Belle Frain is, and I took the afternoon to figure out where she's _been_. And there's some noise, here -- she's a frequent visitor to several prisons -- but looking at the records of who she was visiting? A lot of those are Narcisse. Who still isn't a real person, in case you were curious. She's been deleting her own records behind herself for a long time, and she was matched to _three_ current DMV records in nearby states, when we entered her into the system, so we have no idea who she is. Or, who she _was_ , I should say. Lisa gave us a name, but it's twenty-something years out of date, and there's no record of that person -- there's a couple people with the same name, but not in the right age range, or not in the right locations during the time in question."

"Give me the data, and I'll go through it." Chaz pulled his work tablet out of his bag and held it up. "I trust your work, but I just... see things."

"Right. Our genius is out of town, so we borrow the one from down the hall." Garcia half-turned and hit a few keys. "There's a lot, but you'll have it in a sec."

"Thanks." Chaz reopened the casefile, to familiarise himself with Narcisse in the present, before he started looking back. Something would pop. "So, what about Frain? We know she's visiting Narcisse. We think Narcisse has convinced her to... what, attempt to prove some malfeasance on Agent Reid's part?"

"We don't have any way of knowing what might have passed between Narcisse and Frain, but we do know what passed between Frain and Bollinger, because when only one side of the conversation regularly deletes their emails..." Garcia smiled impolitely and fluttered her eyelashes. "Bollinger did end up writing something about Reid. Not as large a piece as he meant, I think, but a few really nasty paragraphs about public servants owing full accounts to the public -- it's got teeth! So, if someone was looking for a reporter who wouldn't ask too many questions, he'd really be an obvious choice. And, in fact, that's how Frain approached him, offering to commission him to research and deliver a photo-essay on Reid's, I quote, 'worst excesses' and 'violations of the conduct expected of an officer of the law'. Her first suggestion framed him as a womanizer, to which Bollinger responded that he was pretty sure Reid was gay."

Chaz opened his mouth and closed it again, finally settling on a pained look. "And when he gets back, I'm telling him he should be glad Bollinger's never heard of bisexuals."

* * *

The flight was quick, or at least it seemed quick to Reid, who had Langly in his lap, whispering in his ear and showering him with kisses for most of it. There were a few points Langly seemed distracted or paused to get another unspeakably sugary drink, but overall, his attention was on Reid, and so were his hands and his lips.

Somehow, Reid made it through Langly checking them into the hotel. He stood a little back, tipped his head down, in the hopes his hair would hide his kiss-tattered lips, and jammed his hands into his pockets to provide even the slightest cover for the absolute raging boner he honestly looked forward to getting rid of. Or maybe just the process of getting rid of it, and that thought was not helping with the problem at all. Fortunately, the sweater he'd borrowed was cut long, and though he suspected that was because Chaz had trouble keeping his pants on, even with a belt, Reid was grateful for it, now. He smiled and murmured appropriate things as the clerk asked the usual assortment of questions of them. Langly, though, was much more expressive -- a wild story of corporate intrigue and office romance that was... almost true. Sort of. If you squinted at it sideways in a dark room. Finally, they got the key cards to the room, and Reid could escape the way the clerk watched him, as if expecting some contradiction of Langly's overblown tale.

"I just want you to know, I would never marry you," Langly promised, in the elevator. "I know what that would do to your taxes and my estate planning, and it would not be fair to you at all."

Reid laughed. "On the other hand, if you married me, I could never be called upon to testify against you, and we'd never have a problem visiting each other in hospitals."

"I'll tell you what. If it comes to that? I'll pull the records out of my ass." Langly joined in the laugh, stopping only when the elevator opened onto an empty hall with only one door. "Guess that's us. Let's see if it's all I've been promised."

The room was nothing if not white. The first impression was one of snowblindness, and Langly reached over and turned down the dimmer, bringing the lights down to a golden glow that revealed the red accents. The main room had a kitchen stretched along one wall, beside what was probably a bathroom, given the way the wall suddenly notched in, and a sofa and chairs arranged around a fireplace with a television above it, on the other. Stainless white tile stretched toward the far wall, which held double-doors leading into the next room. Beside the door stood a small stack of boxes.

"Thank god for same-day delivery." Langly elbowed the door shut behind them and started tearing open boxes. "It's as white as I could get a room, because I figured nothing would get too screwed up if you felt the need to bleach it. Somewhere in here, I got toilet cleaner so I could wash the hot tub, before I try to convince you to get in it with me."

He handed Reid a pair of zippered plastic bags. "Sheets and blanket, because I know you."

"You didn't have to--"

"I did. It's your birthday, and I want you thinking about an amazing dinner and how many times I can get you off, before we have to go home, not about how many other people might have jizzed on things in here." Langly pulled out a plastic canister. "Disinfectant wipes. Don't trust it? Wipe it first."

Reid put down the bags of bedclothes and put his hands on Langly's face, to stop him from unpacking any more. "Have I mentioned that I love you? Because I love you. This is... You didn't just do something traditionally romantic and expect me to appreciate it. You did something traditionally romantic and went out of your way to make sure I'd be able to enjoy it. You _remembered_ that I don't trust hotels, I don't like bright lights, and you found a way to take something I should be completely revolted by the actuality of, however much I might desire the _concept_ of it, and make it actually intriguing."

"There's no neighbours, no blights on the face of journalism following us around, nobody knows who we are... It's just you and me and a room designed for wild naked partying, that I'm going to clean until you're comfortable getting naked in it." Langly offered a lopsided smile, putting his hands on Reid's hips as Reid leaned in to kiss him.

"Everything you've ever said about not knowing how to do romance? _This._ This is how you do romance."

Langly blinked, blinked again, cleared his throat, and looked away. "So, I wasn't going to do this, but I think I'm going to do this, and I know this isn't the time, because it's your birthday, and this totally isn't because it's your birthday, and it's really probably because you just saved my life for the second time, and I'm pretty sure I'm not really over that, so this is the part where I'm just going to follow in your footsteps and make a complete ass of myself and -- uh... that didn't sound good, did it..."

"I mean, to be fair, I have made an ass of myself several times in recent memory, but I was hoping to serve as a warning, rather than an encouragement..."

Langly's hands settled on Reid's upper arms, and he swallowed and tried to convince himself to look up, to meet Reid's eyes. "Reid... I'm... I think I'm... I just... I'm gonna--" His eyes widened suddenly, and he bolted for the bathroom door. "Throw up! Hold that thought! Back in a--" The end of the sentence cut off at the sound of the door slamming.

The room really was soundproof, Reid noticed, after a few moments, and he started going through the rest of the boxes as he waited, unpacking cleaning supplies onto the kitchen counter. In one box, he found two changes of clothes that were probably intended for him, and another that seemed more Langly's style, if perhaps some cross between Langly's style and his own -- for the restaurant, he realised, remembering that Langly hadn't been carrying luggage, either. It started to come together in his head, as he unpacked the two pairs of fluffy thermal slippers and what looked like an enormous fake-fur rug. Langly had planned this trip from Byers's bed, probably before he'd completely recovered. He'd booked the hotel and gotten the sheets and cleaning supplies sent, and then bought a new motorcycle and picked up donuts for Chaz and Hafidha, probably before realising he'd forgotten to actually pack for the trip. Reid remembered Langly mentioning he was hideous at remembering to pack clothes, when he left town, and this was an artefact of it. Still, Langly had put most of this together while he was still supposed to be recovering, and then he'd gone straight after Bollinger with nothing but a box of donuts under him.

The door to the bathroom opened and Langly leaned out, holding on to the frame. "Hey, pass me the toilet cleaner?"

"I... yeah, sure. What do I do with this?" Reid held up the rug, which he was just now realising had a fake bear head at one end.

Langly grinned, still looking pale and green. "You put it in front of the fire. What can I say? I was hoping to get a couple good pictures to keep in my wallet for rainy days."

Reid squeezed his eyes shut and tossed the bottle of toilet cleaner toward Langly. "Oh, my god. You-- you are just..."

"I like to plan ahead. Anything's possible, even if it's not real likely."

Reid listened to the sound of Langly cleaning the bathroom -- not just the toilet, but probably every surface in the room, from the sound of it -- as he arranged the fake bear rug, claws and all, in front of the fireplace. It was definitely very, very soft, and he could see the appeal of stretching out on it in front of a roaring fire... that he'd have to hold back from Chaz. But, what were the chances the connection was still intact, at this distance? Hadn't Chaz once said it was only supposed to work in line of sight? Obviously, they'd gotten past that, but how far? He didn't feel the emptiness in his bones, but he also wasn't inches away from temptation. At some point, he'd figure it out -- before he spent too much time with the fire.

Langly reappeared, shirtless, jeans hanging low across his hips in a way that suggested they were only held on by his ass. "Bathroom's clean. You should probably get a shower, before we go out. I'm going to go take care of the bed and the hot tub."

"I'd like to at least _see_ the bed and the hot tub... Maybe hang some things up, do some ironing..." Reid unfolded himself from the rug and picked up the box of clothes. "Of course, maybe I'm just procrastinating so you'll take a shower _with me_."

Langly blinked and swallowed. "You iron! I'll wash! The rest of the bathroom should be in that box -- towels, shampoo, hand me the mouthwash, before I try to kiss you again."

Reid grabbed the bathroom box and handed it to Langly. "How much of this did you think of on the plane?"

"Some. Not a lot." The sound of mouthwash hitting the sink followed. "Okay, maybe I remembered clothes on the plane. And maybe I had to screw around with the ordering system a little, but I absolutely _paid_ for same day delivery. I'm not screwing some stock drone because I forgot to pack underwear."

Reid stepped into the bathroom and wrapped his arms around Langly, pressing a kiss to the side of his neck and catching his eye in the mirror. "I adore you, just so you know."

* * *

JJ ducked into the room with a very large bag of sandwiches and glanced around, confused. "There's only four of us. Why-- Oh, wow, you're not Reid."

"I get that a lot." Chaz held out the hand not holding the tablet. "Villette. I'm the reason you're holding six extra sandwiches, and thank you."

"We met on Fitzgerald, when it was just an abduction," JJ recalled, putting the bag of sandwiches in his hand. "How's she doing, do you know?"

Chaz blinked, having expected a hand, not a bag of sandwiches. Smart, though, he decided. Anyone who fed him in the middle of the introduction got points, in his book. "Allie? She's doing well. She's got things mostly under control, now. When she's got questions, she texts me. I hope we can wrap that up, soon. I'd really like to give her back her _life_. Or anyone's life. _A_ life. Living in a safehouse with her mother is nowhere for a nineteen-year-old girl to be stuck for any length of time."

"Eighteen," Garcia corrected, holding out a hand, expectantly. "The one marked XG is mine. Super Veggie with--"

"Extra guacamole. Which means there's three marked XG, and two of them are mine." Chaz put the tablet in his lap and started piling sandwiches next to himself. "Who's got the Philly?"

"Mine." JJ took it out of his hand and squeezed herself into the extra desk chair.

"Which means meatball is yours..." Chaz passed a sandwich to Rossi. "And one of the cold ones is tuna salad and the other one is the Super Veggie." He picked one up in each hand, and without looking offered the right one to Garcia. "Tuna salad's heavier."

"Reid mark two," Rossi joked to JJ, tipping his head at Chaz.

"Mostly a different skillset, actually. I'm more numbers. He's more text. I can actually successfully use a computer and jump out of a plane, but he can probably still soundly kick my ass at Trivial Pursuit."

"And you say 'ass' without smirking like you're twelve," JJ pointed out.

"He only does that because he never says 'ass', and he knows everyone's going to stare." Garcia rolled her eyes and unwrapped her sandwich.

"He's not that bad. I promise I've actually heard him say 'fuck' in the last twenty-four hours, and there was no smirking involved." Chaz took a huge bite of the tuna salad sandwich.

"You heard him say _what_?" A meatball slid out of Rossi's sandwich, landing on the paper spread across his lap.

Chaz fingerspelled the word with the hand not holding a sandwich, still chewing.

JJ blinked. "You sure that wasn't Frank?"

Chaz nodded, cheeks still round with tuna salad.

"Honestly, it's about what I'd say if I had the day he just had," Garcia muttered, looking at the grid Chaz had passed back before he put down the tablet. " _What_ the fuck, even."

"So, what's going on? All I know is that reporter showed back up and he's working for the woman who almost shot Reid?" JJ looked around the room, expectantly.

"Okay, so, Henry Bollinger works for the Ruby Mirror, which is like a celebrity gossip magazine, but substitute politicians and federal employees for celebrities. And he got a _little_ pissy after he lost all those photos of Reid and Frank, and wrote this bitchy little blip that mentioned Reid by name. I say bitchy, but the whole concept is terrifying -- the idea that public employees shouldn't be entitled to private lives. It's pretty gross, but that's kind of the entire purpose of the Ruby Mirror, so..." Garcia picked up her enormous soda and took a drink. "So, then we've got this nice young lady named Belle Frain, and Belle thinks the prison system is garbage and badly needs some help -- the criminal justice system as a whole, really, and honestly, who in here doesn't agree, right? We have _all_ seen some things, and I, for one, will never unsee them. The problem is, she doesn't seem to be very good at pursuing the _truth_. I've been comparing the names in the visitor logs to the descriptions she's written, and a lot of these people that she's writing about were caught in the act. Maybe most of them aren't rapists or murderers, but they're pretty definitely guilty, having been arrested pretty unarguably in the middle of committing crimes. But, they're _good-looking_. She's looking for faces the public can identify with, rather than stories that are likely to be true."

"And they're... working together?" JJ guessed. "Why?"

"Here's where it gets fun. One of Belle's subjects is Narcisse, and she seems pretty enamoured of Narcisse -- sound familiar?"

"The file clerk from the archives."

"Ding! Got it in one." Garcia nodded. "So, here's where it gets a little interesting. We can't prove that Narcisse has anything to do with what's happening. We'll probably never be able to prove it unless we turn Belle Frain. But, what we can prove, if a little less than entirely legally, is that Belle has been encouraging, with money, Henry's little grudge against Reid. And the only person on the list that Belle's been talking to who also has a grudge against Reid is...?"

"Narcisse." JJ tipped her head back and groaned. "Will this case never die?"

"Not until she stops accusing Reid of varying kinds of sexual assault!" Garcia chirped, mashing a key much harder than necessary.

"The tests have already been run. There's no trace of her on anything that isn't perfectly explained by Reid and Frank's account of events. What is she even _trying_ , at this point?"

"According to Belle, who doesn't seem to have the story on straight to begin with, Narcisse is being charged with multiple murders because she wouldn't sleep with him."

" _Reid?_ " JJ fumbled a bite of the sandwich she'd almost finished taking. "This just keeps getting more and more ridiculous. So, now ... what, she's trying to get Bollinger to portray him as a sexual predator? It's _Reid_ , for god's sake. He's had what, two girlfriends and one boyfriend, _ever_? And I'll tell you, I was a little surprised about the boyfriend. Did not see that one coming."

Chaz raised his eyebrows at Rossi, who also decided not to say it.

"And that's the thing-- you didn't see it coming. You only know about the ones where he got _caught_." Chaz looked grimly around the room. "I'm not saying there were more, I'm just saying you really don't know, because he doesn't talk about it." He pointed at JJ. "I know you're married. I know you have a family. I barely know you, but I know that, because everyone knows that. You talk about your family in passing. Agent Reid doesn't. He's managed to keep his personal life almost entirely separate from work, except where those things have overlapped for reasons outside his control. And because of the age difference between him and most of his academic colleagues, and the fact that unlike most of us, he doesn't go to bars or coffee houses without an invitation, he has almost no friends outside of work. He's also suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder -- which, really, which one of us isn't, but that can be played up. You of all people know how that can be used. He's smart. He's a loner. He seems like _such a nice guy_."

"Oh, god." Garcia covered her mouth with one hand, the other hand squeezing the soda tightly enough that it spilled from the straw.

"Oh, shit," JJ agreed.

"You're not making a very good case for him not being guilty," Rossi teased, trying to lighten the mood a little.

"No, I'm not. I'm presenting her defence, because that's what we have to be ready for. That's what we have to expect." And then Chaz took a deep breath and lied. " _You know him better than I do._ I can very easily turn him into that guy your mother always warned you about, but you know him well enough to prove he's not. I hope. Someone has to..."


	26. Chapter 26

Dinner was good, but not good enough to keep them at the table, and Reid and Langly returned with leftovers and enough takeout to keep Langly's eyes on the local networks all night long. Not that the networks were where the majority of his attention was meant to be. As Reid turned around from putting the food in the fridge, Langly caught him by the shirtfront and started unbuttoning.  
  
"Whose birthday is it?" Reid teased, pressing a kiss against the corner of Langly's mouth.  
  
"Mmm, what, you want to do all the unwrapping, yourself?"  
  
"Well, you've brought me here with the best gift I could've asked for; of course I want to unwrap that!"  
  
"Yeah, so... gets even better." Langly wedged a hand into his pocket and then pressed something into Reid's hand.  
  
Reid closed his hand and felt the ring give when his fingers hit it. A wicked smile curled his lips. "Yeah? You think you can keep up without Chaz helping?"  
  
"Wanna find out?" Langly grinned.  
  
"Slow and hard," Reid breathed against Langly's ear, and Langly's knees nearly buckled.  
  
"God, yes." Langly grabbed Reid's shoulders to keep himself upright. "But, if I'm gonna do this, I have to do it now. I have to do this before I get distracted again."  
  
"What are you trying to do?" Reid looked pleasantly confused. "Is there anything I should be doing to help?"  
  
"Just... edge over towards the bathroom door, in case I have to throw up again. I really hope I don't. I liked dinner just fine going down. I don't need to try it in reverse," Langly rambled, nudging Reid back toward the bathroom. "Listen, I had the weirdest goddamn dream, after I let Villette fuck with my head, and I saw some things, and I think maybe they're yours, because they're sure as hell not mine, and I've been trying to wait for the whole hero worship thing to wear off, but it's not going, and I know it's supposed to go -- I swooned over Byers the last time he stopped me from getting shot, okay, I know how this works. Except it's not working. And I, um... I'm kind of... I think... Reid? I think--"  
  
"Shh. You don't have to do this." Reid raised a hand to gently cup Langly's cheek.  
  
"No, _listen to me_ , dammit. Listen to me." Langly's hands clenched uncomfortably tight around Reid's shoulders, and he looked like if he let go, he might fall. "I love you."  
  
"You don't have to do this," Reid repeated, eyes pleading for something he couldn't find the words to voice.  
  
"Do you _want_ me to lie to you? Ask Frohike; I'm a _shitty_ liar, but if you want me to tell you it's still just physical, I'll do it. I'm in love with your dick. I mean, I am, but I'm pretty sure I'm in love with the rest of you, too." Langly paused, letting go of Reid's shoulders. "I'm no fucking good at this. I _do not_ know what I'm doing. One of the few times you'll hear me admit that. ... And now I just ruined your birthday, didn't I. Way to fucking go, Ringo."  
  
" _No_ , I don't want you to lie to me! That's the _point_!" Reid still looked uncertain. "You're serious?"  
  
"What the hell else would I be, exactly?" Langly demanded, hands flung out in frustration.  
  
"Telling me something I wanted to hear, because it's my birthday?"  
  
And that set off the shouting. "I fucking said it wasn't a birthday gift! I said it wasn't because this was your birthday! It's because it's the first time we've fucked since I really started thinking it, and just like 'I have syphilis', it's the kind of thing you tell someone before you shove your dick up their ass!"  
  
Reid looked stunned, and then mortified, and then, no matter what he did with his lips, he couldn't stop the laugh that followed, and he pressed both hands over his mouth in horror. He stared, and Langly stared back, neither of them certain whose move it was or what came next.  
  
Finally, Reid held out a hand. "I'm sorry. I'm saying that a lot, today. I just-- We had that conversation, and I'd finally gotten used to the idea that I could just... love you, and as long as you were happy with that, we'd be fine. That I could be comfortable being in a relationship with someone who was willing and happy to be with me, but didn't feel the same way I did. I just really was not expecting this."  
  
"Neither was I," Langly drawled, still obviously bent.  
  
"I can get used to this, too, if you're willing."  
  
"You going to stop being a shit about it?"  
  
Reid's eyes squeezed shut in embarrassment, and his lips thinned. "Sorry. Really, I am-- Yes. Yes, I'm going to stop being a shit about it."  
  
Langly reached out and took Reid's hand. "You still wanna fuck?"  
  
Reid laughed again, eyes still closed, tears streaming down his face. "Probably? Let me just catch my breath a minute." He sniffed and blinked, squeezing Langly's hand. "Let me hold you?"  
  
Langly stepped into it, cautiously putting his arms around Reid, only to find himself wrapped up tight, clung to, as Reid sobbed against his shoulder. He was still sure he'd broken something important, and he had no idea how to fix it.  
  
"I am so glad to be with you, right now," Reid choked out, "and I love you so much."  
  
"I love you, too." Langly spread his hands across as much of Reid's back as they'd cover, repeating words he'd said again and again to Byers. "And you'd better not be getting snot in my hair."  
  
"... Too late. Rinse it out in the hot tub."

* * *

"I need someone who can do with paper what Hafs can do with electronic storage," Chaz complained, flipping through another pile of records on his tablet. "Because, yes, Narcisse really is that good, but I don't have any reason to believe she got the paper copies, and if we've got a name for her that dates to the nineties, there are probably still paper copies, somewhere."  
  
"You want Reid," JJ joked, examining the backgrounds of prison guards. "He reads faster than he can turn pages."  
  
"How does he still have such a distaste for electronics? Digital text is the answer to that problem!" Chaz rolled his eyes and didn't lose his place. "I'm not sure there's actually any use chasing her like this. She doesn't exist before the issue dates on those ID cards. If we're going to find her, it'll have to be on paper. And I'm not sure that even helps us, now. It'll be a nice footnote, looking back, but she's already been captured during the commission of a crime in which there's obvious evidence that she committed it. Her history isn't going to win this in court. Her history isn't even _admissible_."  
  
"No, but it may give us leverage with her." Rossi glanced at the time and debated running out for more food. All six sandwich wrappers next to Villette sat empty and he was absently sucking on the tips of his fingers, having long since finished licking the sauce off them. "As you said, she's done a very good job cleaning up after herself. If we come to her with things she thought she'd escaped..."  
  
"That's--" Chaz grabbed the edge of the cabinet so hard his knuckles turned white, mouth falling open as he blinked dizzily. "I'll be right back," he squeaked, sounding a little panicky, as he dropped to his feet and grabbed for the door. "Not feeling so hot. Somebody order Chinese? I'll be-- Just give me a few minutes."  
  
His knees almost buckled but he made it out of the office and down the hall, a dead sprint for the bathroom, and he locked the door behind him, before throwing himself into a stall and locking that, too. This was impossible. This couldn't be happening. Reid was in Oregon, which was thousands of miles away. This wasn't just down the hall or even across town -- and that, really, was when he should've become concerned, but it was too late now.  
  
He leaned against the wall and let the sensation break over him. Why this? Why now? Obviously everything else had been at arm's length, a distant hum as if in another room, like things usually were, between them. He'd been so relieved when he hadn't felt Reid tear away from him that he hadn't bothered to consider the actual implications of it, and now, panting against the wall of the bathroom at work, thankfully after-hours, he could feel those implications throbbing wetly in his ass.  
  
Weak-kneed, he palmed himself, not even bothering to open his zipper, just pressing, stroking, squeezing, grinding against his own hand, and when Reid came, Chaz felt it ring through his bones. It was a good thing he'd done so much fucking standing up in nightclub bathrooms, he thought, because otherwise he'd be sitting down after that. It was incredible, and they were still going. And he knew the right thing to do was to step away, to close that door, at least to muffle the transmission if not to end it, but he could see so clearly, as he unbuttoned his pants -- Langly stretched over them, dripping with sweat, and Chaz couldn't decide if he wanted to be Reid or to ride his aching cock. Both, he realised. This was them -- it was always both.

* * *

Langly's hands were sweet like honey against his skin, Reid thought, the sensation golden against his nerves like the low light above where he sprawled against the soft, red sheets, one hand gripping the carved headboard, to keep from being slammed into it as Langly fucked him. _Fucked_. At this point there was no other word for it, though earlier he might have said Langly had worshipped his body like he was paying service at some altar to Priapus, lips and tongue on every inch of his skin, even those they both tended to shy away from tasting. But, now, it was just like he'd wanted, mostly slow and hard, Langly grinding into him, nipping and sucking at his chest -- and he was going to have such a set of bruises from that -- the pace picking up into savage rutting each time Langly came again.  
  
"Please, please, please--" Reid arched and writhed, barely coherent, wringing Langly inside him as he came again. Maybe three. Maybe he could handle three. His body ached, muscles trembling in the aftermath, but his nerves still sang like glass, everywhere Langly touched him. He wanted more, meant to go until his body refused to handle any more. And he loved the way Langly wanted him, entirely without reserve, that desire becoming touches, bleeding out as drops of sweat that splashed against his skin. It was wonderful. It was perfect. He'd never been so in love. He'd never been so satisfied.  
  
And before he could quite come down, another hand joined the ones already on his skin -- one hand too many. Reid blinked at the sudden rough pressure, the needy squeeze between his thighs, and the confusion cleared with a flash of bathroom wall and floor he recognised. Between his eyes and the floor, a hand he recognised. Chaz? But, they were almost three thousand miles apart--  
  
The thought fell away as Chaz rubbed harder at himself, at themselves, at one of two bodies they clearly still shared, the rough caress against his still-glowing nerves shoving Reid back over the edge, from one orgasm straight into the next. Three then. He thought he was having a third, but maybe it was still part of the second. How did one count, really? Did it matter? Did he really care about anything beyond the way Langly fit inside him, the way Chaz's hand cupped and stroked him? Oh, yes. He cared so much, so blindingly much, about the rush of pleasure that seemed to start from the tips of his toes, swirling and coursing upward like a flooding river, until it swamped his brain.  
  
Langly watched Reid come apart under him, the flash of confusion just before his eyes rolled back, a strangled sound as the tension squeezed the air from his lungs. Two in a row? That was new, and Langly allowed himself a smug little smile that quickly vanished as Reid clenched around him, knocking his face slack. God, had he ever imagined it could be like this? Probably not. This had never been his life, but now he was apparently living in a porno, because that was the only place things like this happened at all, nevermind to guys like him.

* * *

He'd gone half-soft, but Chaz still stroked himself with a spit-slick hand, trying to write himself into the scene, as Reid reached for him instead of pushing him away. He'd been surprised by the apologetic wash of the first moment of realisation, but Reid had recognised the floor, of all things, and knew where he was and what had probably happened. Yeah, he'd take that apology, except it was his own damn fault -- don't blame the alpha for your own failure to plan ahead.  
  
But, now, he was bending Reid's perceptions, bending his own perceptions. He knew it was Langly inside them, but if he angled the mirror just so, could he split that sensation? Could he combine that with a fistful of spit to take Reid into himself, kneeling in front of Langly in a way he knew he'd never tolerate in reality? Would the rutting and wringing he reflected back be enough to--  
  
There. There, _right there_ , that was it. That was the angle, and he pressed his mouth against his forearm against the wall as Reid pounded into him ( _or he pounded into Reid -- was there really a difference?_ ), Langly filling them both -- no, just Reid. Langly filling Reid, Reid filling him -- oh, yes, feel that tight softness -- and someone's hand teasing and squeezing his cock. Whose hand? Did it matter? Not as long as the rest of the scene made enough sense not to be rejected outright.  
  
He was so glad he'd locked the door as that sound wrenched out of him, as his soul wrenched out of him one way and his nerves the other, leaving him dazed and tingling, legs barely holding him up. He was going to make a point to congratulate Langly on his stunning ability to actually handle multiple orgasms on a regular basis, because this was far more than he could take, and he lowered himself to the toilet seat, leaving wet handprints on the sides of the stall.

* * *

Four orgasms was the point at which Reid started bargaining with himself for his own life and sanity. _You are not allowed to lose your mind. Okay, yes, your thighs feel like they've been shredded like pulled pork, but that is Langly's body between them, and that slide of wet skin is absolute evidence of some greater good in the universe. All you have to do is make it through one more. Langly's almost there again, you can feel him starting to tip. You can feel... Is that even your--?_  
  
He felt Chaz pull back, slowly, amid a burst of promises not to sever the connection, but just to stay on his own side of the door he was now going to lock firmly, until they were back in the same city. Some of the aches slid away with Chaz's consciousness, but most of them were his own. The dizziness passed as he was no longer trying to support a standing body, and his arms reached up to pull Langly closer down, now that he no longer had to maintain the illusion of Chaz between them. And now that he knew they could do that...  
  
Langly laid himself along Reid's chest, shivering at the press of skin on skin, as his nerves burned with it, twinging and prickling at the contact, at the wet slide, but it was Reid's hands against his back that brought him over again, sobbing and shuddering. This was nothing he'd ever dreamed, and he loved it. Loved Reid, too, he thought, again, and that still sat strangely with him. But, as he tried to get the muscles in his thighs to relax, so he could start again, Reid's hands slid down, taking a firm grip of both cheeks.  
  
"Enough." Reid panted and shivered. "I want you so much, but if we keep going, I'm going to die."  
  
Langly laughed, breathlessly. "I win. Number and duration."  
  
"You _cheated_!" Reid sputtered, trying to figure out if he could count Chaz's orgasms as more of his own. _Speaking of cheating..._  
  
"Uh... _yes?_ " Langly pushed himself up, still shivering, even as his chest peeled away from Reid's, the sound of the sweat between them putting a flash of embarrassed amusement on his face. "Of course I cheated? That's how I work?"  
  
Reid laughed, choking on it as Langly pulled out of him. "Ow."  
  
"You think it hurts now, wait for tomorrow." Langly struggled to get his fingers to stop shaking long enough to get the cockring off without pinching himself.  
  
"And we do this on purpose," Reid groaned, running his fingertips along his own sweat-slick thigh, shivering at the sensation until his penis tried to take an interest in it, lancing a raw, wet pain across his hips. "I'd offer to help, but I think I'm in worse shape than you are."  
  
"I definitely win." Langly looked smug, again. "Relax in the hot tub, before we pass out in a pool of sweat?"  
  
"As long as I don't have to stand up? Sure." A smile spread across Reid's face, and it felt like it had started somewhere in his chest, with the radiant warmth that spread through his body. "And I adore you completely, but you're absolutely spending a minute in the shower before you get in the hot tub."  
  
"What? _Why?_ " Langly sputtered, finally getting his hands to obey him. "That seems a little redundant. Get in the water before you get in the water?"  
  
"Because I'll sit in the hot tub with my own snot in the water, but I'd really rather you washed off the intestinal bacteria, in case there's any licking, later."  
  
Langly's eyes widened and his lips thinned. "Ew. Right. Shower then hot tub."  
  
"You wash. I'll take care of myself and fill the tub again."  
  
"Without standing up." Langly didn't look convinced.  
  
"Do not underestimate what I can accomplish with three limbs touching the floor."

* * *

Chaz wiped down the walls and cleaned himself up, spending a while just staring at himself in the bathroom mirror. What the _hell_ had he just done? At work. In the actual middle of a case. In the middle of a _sentence_. But, he hadn't known. That was something he hadn't been prepared for, and it wouldn't happen again... unless he wanted it to, which he could think of some uses for, and exactly none of them would lead to more of _this_.  
  
He splashed water on his face and tried to figure out what he was going to say to Reid's team.  
  
Still damp, he unlocked the door and found Rossi leaning against the opposite wall.  
  
"Oh, good. I figured I'd use the bathroom, while you sorted yourself out, but you'd locked the door." Rossi's look was sympathetic, but his eyes were suspicious. "You doing all right?"  
  
"Sorry. Had a rough case a few years ago." Chaz gestured at the scars on his left hand and wrist. "Not all the parts of my body work like they're supposed to any more... You might want to use the Ladies', for now." He looked awkwardly apologetic, the corners of his mouth threatening the edges of his face.  
  
"Yikes." Rossi nodded, still not quite looking convinced. "You going to be okay?"  
  
"I really just need to eat. I'll be fine in a few minutes."

* * *

They'd left the lights off, except the lights under the water, and Reid sat with his back to one of the jets, letting the bubbles massage his lower back, his feet resting on the opposite bench, under the bay window that looked out over the river. He should've been uncomfortable, surrounded with windows as he was, here, but they were at the highest point for miles, on this side of the building, and most of what was out those windows was sky. Langly leaned against his side, under one arm, back in a t-shirt.  
  
"So... good birthday?" Langly asked, tipping his head back against Reid's shoulder.  
  
"Are you kidding me? My birthday is _tomorrow_." Reid smiled wickedly down at Langly. "It's not even midnight, yet. It's not even midnight in _Maryland_."  
  
Langly laughed. "Just gonna have to try harder, tomorrow. I haven't even brought out the good stuff, yet."  
  
"What good stuff? You showed up with nothing but your laptop. Everything else came out of those boxes, and we're _out of boxes_." Reid blinked and squinted suspiciously. "Unless you're expecting more boxes."  
  
"You didn't see what else is in my laptop bag. I finally finished something. Figured your birthday was as good a time as any to try it out."  
  
"... Do I want to know?"  
  
"You wanted to know the last time I brought it up. It was _your idea_." Langly looked thoroughly smug.  
  
"Definitely a good prelude to a birthday. I have to call my mother, in the morning, and let her know I'm still alive, assuming I don't die of orgasmic bliss before then. I'm definitely telling her you took me out to dinner and gave me a night in a very large bed. And I'm not saying a word about how good that night was, because there are some things I don't think need to be mentioned, like the entire rest of the day."  
  
"Then I'll have to give you your present early, so you can distract her with that." Langly laughed, tossing an arm absently across both of them and curling his hand around Reid's hip.  
  
Reid snorted and pressed a kiss to the side of Langly's head. "I love you."  
  
Langly was silent for a long moment, staring intently into the distance as he weighed the words on his tongue, debated whether he had any business saying it, before finally deciding that if Reid could be mistaken on the subject, he could be, too, and it would be fine. It would all work out in the end. They'd figure it out. "I love you, too."


	27. Chapter 27

Reid lay on the fake-bear rug, with the fire at his back, draped in a red sheet, with a glass of champagne and a bowl of chocolate-dipped strawberries by the hand that led back to the elbow that held him up. His other hand held a phone, and he tried to talk to his mother while Langly walked around him, observing him from different angles. Eventually, he was going to have to ask, but he suspected it had something to do with the photos he hadn't yet agreed to. He might, though, as long as he got to keep the sheet. If Langly promised never to show them to anyone but Chaz.  
  
"Yes, I promise, we're having a lovely time. It's a very big bed, and there's a hot tub that looks out over the river. ... No, not the Potomac, the Yaquina, I think. We're in Oregon. Oddly, I'm not sure exactly _where_ in Oregon, but it's definitely Oregon." He laughed, then. "Yes, I'm eating. I promise I'm eating. I'm with Frank, so I must be up to six meals a day -- do you know how much he eats? ... N-- No, mom, not for breakfast. Champagne and strawberries, if you can believe it."  
  
He held out the phone. "She wants to talk to you."  
  
Langly closed his eyes and nodded, writing the end of the file, before he tried to bring his brain back around to human languages. "Sorry, one more time?"  
  
"My mother wants to talk to you."  
  
Langly swallowed and took the phone, trying to sound pleasant and casual instead of entirely terrified. "Professor Reid! How are you? -- No, that is not a line of crap, we're definitely in Oregon, and he's hoarding all the strawberries."  
  
"It's _my_ birthday!" Reid complained, intentionally loud enough for his mother to hear.  
  
"Fine, but the samosas are mine." Langly stuck out his tongue and then almost bit it trying to answer the next suspicious inquiry. "Yes, Mrs Professor-Doctor-Ma'am! I am absolutely taking very good care of him. Lots of desserts, hours in the hot tub, all the sleep he can stand. It's that vacation he keeps trying to take, but I dropped his FBI phone in the toilet, so he's definitely getting it this time." He winked at Reid, who nearly spit champagne.  
  
"Me? Oh, I had some days off coming to me. Besides, it's a weekend." Sunday, Langly suddenly realised, and he couldn't remember if he'd pushed the last sidebar for this week, yet. Shit, he was going to have to cough up a few hundred words on some strange-but-true historical cryptid... or maybe he'd just tear a piece out of Bollinger. "What? I wouldn't have any business dating, if I couldn't afford to spoil someone every once in a while. It's not a big deal. It's a weekend in the Pacific Northwest, not a week in the Pacific Islands, even if I do think he needs a week in the Pacific Islands. -- _Yes_ , with sunblock and a big hat. Have you actually looked at me? I'm not taking less care of him than I do of myself. That would be missing the _point_."  
  
"Do not get into a fight with my mother," Reid warned, washing down a half-chewed strawberry with a swig of champagne.  
  
"It's not a fight! I'm agreeing with her! Just for that we're going to Jamaica, next year!" Langly's eyes widened, his attention suddenly back on the words Diana spoke to him. "Latoya did? Really? And what did she find out? ... Yes, that's -- That's me. I am _that_ Frank Arroway. -- No, I just make sure the servers don't catch fire. Fitz -- that is, Ken Fitzgerald -- handles that end of the business. Yes, we do own that building. Yes, that's a very recent pur-- Of course I'm going to fix the goddamn windows! And the laundry, too. Probably the heat. That place costs way too much. ... Yes, I did think of that, but he won't let me. ... _Independent_. That's one word for it." He scoffed and looked at Reid. "Your mother doesn't believe you turned down a rent-free apartment."  
  
Reid raised his voice enough to be picked up by the phone. He was pretty sure even if he hadn't, Langly would make sure he was audible. "My mother should know it's exactly that kind of inequitable treatment of the populace that leads to corruption, and I'm not going to stand for it, even when it benefits me."  
  
"You should be proud of him. There's not a lot of people in the world with that kind of strength of will." And just maybe, Langly thought, he _did_ have a type -- neutral good. Funny, he'd always figured he'd eventually be seduced by the pleasures of chaotic evil. Succubi, and in the most technical terms, _Kimmy_. There'd always been something appealing about that level of self-interest, but he always came back around. "I sound like I love him? I hope so!"  
  
Reid held out his hand, gesturing for Langly to give him back the phone.  
  
"Here, he wants me to hand you back."  
  
Reid licked a bit of strawberry juice off his lip. "Yes, mom, I'm here. Ye-- Yes, that-- Yes. Look, I _like_ him, okay? It's got nothing to do with money! ... If it did, I wouldn't be paying rent, would I? ... I don't care if you say it in Latin, it's _still_ rude _and_ none of your business! ... I know you're worried about me. You're always worried about me. I'm pretty sure that's just a feature of motherhood. ... I know, but I'm happy. ... Yes. ... How many times have you _ever_ heard me say that? I'm happy, and I'm in love. ... I'm pretty sure he does, and it has nothing to do with what he has to say about it. He's kind, and he treats me with respect." Well, _most of the time_ , but he knew where to end that sentence. It wasn't a conversation he wanted to have with his mother, and certainly not on the phone. "I don't think it _matters_ what he calls it, but yes, he's said it. ... Yes, I love you too, mom. Thank you. ... Is that Latoya? Let me talk to her a minute. ... Ye-- Okay. Send me a copy, when you finish it!"  
  
Reid closed his eyes over a frustrated look, and Langly refilled the glass of champagne.  
  
"Hey, how are things up there? ... I'm not really worried about it. This is what I expect. You know that. ... You're kidding me. ... Yes, absolutely send me the reports. I'd love to see how that's working out! ... Is she actually writing? My god, I mean, she wrote that article twenty-five years ago, but..." Reid wiped his eye with his wrist, to avoid the chocolate on his fingertips. "I know it's too soon to tell. I know. We've been through this so many times. ... Yeah. I am. I know it's a lot to ask, but I am. Thank you so much for looking after her. ... I know, but it matters to _me_. I'll come visit, once we get a couple more cases wrapped up. ... I'll bring Frank ... Does he? I'll tell him that. ... Take care of _yourself_ , too, Latoya."  
  
Reid finally put down the phone, pressing the heel of that hand against his eye.  
  
"Bad?" Langly asked, quietly.  
  
"No." Reid looked up, the strain clear on his face. "Better than she's been in _years_. This was a bad day. _This_. This is what her _good days_ looked like, last year. I'm just afraid to hope. I'm afraid it's all going to turn, again, like it always does. They can't keep her on anything too long -- it stops working or the long-term risks far outweigh the benefits. But, this new treatment is working better than anything we've tried before, and I just... I don't want to get used to it, only to have her relapse, again. Every time is just as terrifying as the first time."  
  
"Every time something good happens, you just dig your heels in, because you're afraid of losing it. You're afraid if you accept it, something's going to take it from you." Langly snatched a strawberry and tossed himself onto the couch. "And then you just end up with loss on top of loss, and nothing good to remember."  
  
"The loss is less of a drop if you don't climb up, first."  
  
"Look, if there's one thing I've learned in life, it's grab what you can and run. You can't just keep your head down, or everything just goes past you, and I know for a fact that when things go wrong, you'll move mountains. You'd be shit at your job, otherwise, and you're really not, so... And it's not even just the job. Something's not right, and you just get up and fix it." Langly flicked the strawberry leaves at Reid and licked chocolate off his fingers. "But, you have to get up like that for things you want, too, because when you do... I mean, here I am. I am living the dream, okay, and that's because you got up and grabbed."  
  
"Actually, I think I fell down and tried not to put my hands anywhere inappropriate, but the end result was the same." Reid shook his head. "I don't want to talk about it. Things are good, and I don't want to spend any more time considering how bad they're probably going to get."  
  
"That's the spirit!" Langly stretched along the length of the couch, watching Reid finish the champagne in a single swallow, catching the discarded strawberry leaves in his teeth.  
  
"You know what we need? _Cherries_." Reid wiped the leaves off his lips and dropped them into the pile with the rest of the leaves. "Did I ever tell you I can tie a knot in a cherry stem with my tongue? Fun thing I picked up in college. The sorority girls who taught me thought it was hilarious. I got to have as many vodka-soaked cherries as I wanted, as long as I could tie the stems. Once I lacked the, ah... oral dexterity to continue, I wasn't allowed to have any more booze." He cleared his throat and looked a little embarrassed, if impressed, with his past self. "I don't think I've ever been that drunk in my life, daiquiri accidents included."  
  
Langly blinked, blinked again, and Reid was still there, still looking like the cat that ate the canary and lived to regret it. "So, I'm having cherries sent up with lunch, right? Maybe more champagne instead of vodka? You're supposed to be going back to work tomorrow."  
  
"Oh, no. Definitely vodka. Wine hangovers are so much worse, and that's another thing I learned the hard way." A pained look followed, just long enough to be shaken off. "But, what were you staring at, earlier? Considering pictures?"  
  
"Taking pictures." Langly grinned, grabbing his bag from next to the couch and carefully sliding only the laptop out of it. "I've been teaching myself some things, and you were a great inspiration to get some practice in."  
  
"With... what?" Reid blinked in confusion, and Langly tapped the side of his head.  
  
"Remember? As long as I've got network access, I can read and write anything I can think. The problem's turning input into coherent files that can be read by anything besides me. I can't just... see it and save it. I have to know what that file looks like, from the inside, but after I got into Bollinger's shit, I started thinking about it. I still have those images, and I just have to get a grip on how the encoding works. I'd rather write png than jpg or raw, but that's getting fancy. I just have to get one format down, and then I'll understand how they work. I'll be able to pick up another, easy, once I get where I can do one without thinking about it." He snapped his fingers, as the laptop finished coming back from sleep mode, and the screen filled with pixellated smears of colour, mostly completely unnatural and clashing. "See? Not so good, at first." He flicked his hand and another image appeared, this one still badly pixellated, but more obviously a low-resolution version of the room and a person. "It's the last few that are pretty good. Well, the very last one is... ah..."  
  
The image that came up next was very clear, the red of the sheet a deep jewel tone, the light of the fire casting a halo along the edges of Reid's body. Reid held the champagne in one hand, eyes closed, chin turned toward his shoulder and up, so he could drink it without sitting up, the fingers of his other hand resting on the edge of the dish of strawberries. His chest and neck were speckled with pink and purple bite marks and hickeys from the night before, and he looked at once elegant, unreachable, and utterly debauched.  
  
"... Do I actually look like that?" Reid sat up, grabbing the laptop and tipping it to get a better angle. "There's no way--"  
  
"That's exactly what you look like." Langly's shoulder twitched in a sympathetic half-shrug. "I should probably touch that one up. It could be better."  
  
" _Better?_ " Reid made a strangled sound. "I look like something off the cover of a romance novel! That's not _me_!"  
  
"That is absolutely you. That's -- You don't get to see you like that, because you're too busy _being you_. Bathroom mirrors are merciless. They're supposed to be." Langly gestured at the laptop. "Now do you get it? You're goddamn gorgeous. I would absolutely hang naked pictures of you on the ceiling over my bed, okay, that kind of gorgeous. Except I don't have to do that, because I have the real thing, and you're so much better when I can wake up next to you, and you're all warm and soft."  
  
"Yeah, and then you have to put up with the post-coffee morning breath and the nightmares."  
  
"And the fact that you're breathtaking, even before you get your eyes open, and you _want_ to be in bed with me." Langly reached out and tucked Reid's hair behind his ear. "I'm pretty into that part."  
  
"I am ... so incredibly uncomfortable, right now." Reid blinked, still staring at the screen. "I know this is objectively a good photograph. It's an excellent genre piece. The lighting is fantastic, the colours are great. But... that's... me."  
  
"If you tell me to delete that, we're gonna fight. I'm holding onto that one, but I'm not _showing_ it to anybody."  
  
"I'd let you show it to Chaz," Reid admitted, after a moment. "But, I have to be in the room, when that happens. I want to see his face."  
  
"Why? You can see his reactions from next door."  
  
"I could see his reactions from here." Reid cleared his throat and offered Langly a pained look. "But, we can usually filter what we show each other. And we usually do. I don't need to be hungry, just because he needs to eat. And as you've pointed out, seeing and being are two very different things."  
  
"I dispute the hungry thing. You need to be hungry, more often. You need to _eat_ , more often." Langly flicked a hand. "Not the point. Go back to the part where you can see his reactions from here... I thought the two of you needed to be close together. He always says it doesn't work if he can't see someone, but I know you two got past that part..."  
  
"So, ah... Last night? Four of those were mine. The other three were not."  
  
"The... _other three_?" Langly blinked and stared. "How exactly are you standing up, today? How exactly are you not a cryptid?"  
  
"I don't need to be a cryptid. I have the two of you." Reid smiled impolitely at Langly for a moment. "But, yes. The other _three_. There's a tiny delay, at this distance. Just a second or two in either direction, but it makes things _very_ interesting. Which may mean that isn't actually seven, but two with a bizarre waveform. Practically, though, it's at _least_ four. And none of that was intentional, for either of us, which made it a little... ah... I may need to make some apologies, when we get back."  
  
"Hafs has to be used to it by now." Langly shrugged one shoulder.  
  
"He wasn't _home_."  
  
"... Oh. Oh, _shit_."  
  
"We, ah... have to work on that, I think. Just a little. I'd rather not have any more surprises. Have I mentioned how incredibly much I dislike surprises?"  
  
"Even when they're good," Langly teased.  
  
"It's not going to be good if one of us is trying not to get shot," Reid reminded him. "We need better control. Both of us."  
  
"It's his problem, not yours. Put this where it goes -- you're not the cryptid in this relationship."  
  
"It's _his_ power, but it's _our_ problem. Both of us are going to be affected by this," Reid argued, smacking Langly's hand away from the last strawberry. "I get the strawberries; you get the samosas."  
  
"After breakfast, you want to give him a chance to practise ignoring you?" Langly smiled lopsidedly.  
  
"You mean ignoring your amazing body, as I demonstrate my opinion of every inch of your skin, individually and with multiple parts of my body?" Reid's smile approached perfect innocence. "I might be interested."


	28. Chapter 28

On Monday, Reid appeared with an extra bag, from which he extracted a thick pillow, depositing it on his desk chair with a satisfying 'floompf', before he unpacked the paperwork he'd taken home on Friday. Friday? He thought it had been Friday. Or maybe Langly had run off copies at some point. It didn't matter; he was caught up.  
  
"Hell of a pillow." Alvez tried to hide a smile behind his coffee. "Good weekend?"  
  
"Birthday weekend." Reid sat down and settled into the pillow. "I've reached an age where I'm done with the Bureau's standards for ergonomically appropriate chairs. It's always been too short for me, and I'm tired of bruising every time I stand up wrong or sit down too fast. I am much too thin for cheap office furniture. Yes, even if I do weigh more than Villette, from down the hall."  
  
"Did I hear you taking my name in vain?" Chaz called out, from where he'd wedged one of the hall doors open with his shoulder, a cake in both hands, and a small bag with paper plates and other necessities hanging from two fingers.  
  
"Never in vain!" Reid looked amused, knowing Chaz had been waiting for his ass to hit the chair. "Miss us, this weekend?"  
  
"Hell no," Chaz scoffed, one corner of his mouth curling. "Got out and went clubbing with Penny and Hafs. Beautiful women, pounding bass... Didn't think of you at all."  
  
"Which is why you're carrying cake." Reid looked up smugly, rocking his chair back, as Chaz set the cake on the corner of his desk.  
  
"This morning technically isn't the weekend any more."  
  
"He never looks at us like that, and I think I'm glad." Simmons paused at the corner of Lewis's desk, watching the two of them slyly jab at each other, a few words at a time.  
  
"They're very much alike, and they've been spending a lot of time together, with the task force. I'd be surprised if there weren't a bit of jocular antagonism." Lewis looked up from the screen, raising a curious eyebrow at Simmons.  
  
"But, it's _Reid_ ," Simmons hissed, under his breath.  
  
"And maybe _that's_ why he looks at Agent Villette like that, but not you." Lewis smiled wryly.  
  
"Lewis says this is some kind of nerdy pissing contest," Alvez announced to the Evil Twins, more alike with every passing day, and both of them moved to look at him, synchronously, like a pair of cats.  
  
"Pissing contests don't usually involve cake," Chaz pointed out, gesturing with a lemon frosting covered knife.  
  
"We're not having a pissing contest," Reid sighed. "If we were, he'd win. He's _taller_. I prefer to engage in competitions I have some chance of winning."  
  
Chaz closed his eyes, tipping his head as he ran the numbers, running a finger down the side of the knife, and then sucking the frosting off. "Not much taller, but I think you're right. I'm pretty sure that's enough of an advantage, for a distance competition, and if it's not..." He leaned down and whispered something in Reid's ear.  
  
Reid sat up with an inhale, suddenly taller than he'd been. "I'm certain that has nothing to do with it."  
  
"Potato cannon. You know the arc's what makes the difference," Chaz teased.  
  
"Oh, what's that? Are you asking me to hold onto your birthday present until next year, because that's what I'm hearing."  
  
"Birthday..." Alvez blinked, suddenly entirely weirded out. "You two weren't actually born on the same day, were you?"  
  
"No," they answered in what almost passed for a single voice.  
  
Chaz fluttered his fingers and smiled brightly. "Halloween."  
  
"I should have been born on All Saints, which would make it even closer, but I was a little impatient." Reid shrugged. "Story of my life."  
  
"Anyway, I'm actually here to commit an act of bribery." Chaz tipped a large slice of cake onto a plate, stuck a fork in it, and offered it to Reid. "I want you to come with me to interview Helmsman's men. I know we've got three interviews on record, but you and I have a lot more information than anyone else does. I think we can get more interesting answers if we ask more interesting questions."  
  
"You're probably right," Reid agreed, accepting the plate, still looking up at Chaz. "What are you bribing me with?"  
  
"I'll cook dinner for all three of us."  
  
Reid nodded slowly, fork in his mouth, until he pointed at Chaz with it. "Done. Three of us?" A slim smile spread across his face. "Are we bringing Frank?"  
  
"That's the question, isn't it? They don't know if he survived. On the one hand, showing up without him might suggest he's dead and that we're holding a murder charge. On the other hand, it might suggest weakness -- that we're trying to protect him."  
  
"I _am_ trying to protect him. He's a civilian consultant. This isn't actually part of his job."  
  
"He's your boyfriend, and he almost got killed last week. You _should be_ protecting him." Chaz shrugged, blinking as if it were obvious. "But, if we bring him... He's recovered a lot better and faster than anyone predicted. If you can get him to _shut up_ , he'll be terrifying."  
  
Reid snorted, pressing his wrist against his mouth, fork still in hand, as he shook his head and tried to swallow before answering. "You can't get him to shut up. You heard him with Asher."  
  
Chaz tipped his head back and forth, contemplatively, cutting himself a slice of cake. "I think it has to be up to him whether he comes with us. And part of that decision has to be an absolute promise not to mention certain things." He caught Reid's eye and made a silent promise to slap the leading thoughts out of Langly's head, if it came to it, like hip-checking a turntable to skip a record.  
  
"You should tell him the consequences of opening his mouth for the wrong reasons. Let him make the decision knowing that, at least. He'll be able to judge, with that in mind."  
  
"I absolutely intend to."  
  
Reid got through a few more bites of cake. "You know he's coming with us, right? He's not going to say no."  
  
"I kind of figured." Chaz glanced over his shoulder. "Did anyone else want cake?"  
  
"Because if not, he's going to eat all of that, himself."  
  
"I almost want to see that..." Alvez eyed Chaz and the cake with no small amount of disbelief.  
  
"I'm not passing up free cake!" Simmons decided, finally stepping closer to Reid's desk.  
  
"Is that a spice cake?" Lewis looked around her monitor.

* * *

"I'm supposed to be a _what_ , now?" Langly asked, leaning between the front seats of a car that just screamed 'government vehicle' from every angle. They'd dressed him up again, so he'd look like he belonged with them, but they hadn't quite explained what was going on, besides going to the prison -- _a_ prison, but no one had yet mentioned which -- to interview the guy who'd been 'interviewing' him. Less electricity, this time, which he was almost disappointed about.  
  
"Polygraph tech." Reid offered a tiny smile over his shoulder. "We're not actually going to give him a polygraph, obviously. They're not admissible, and neither is what Agent Villette is about to do, but we are entitled to bring the required hardware and personnel to the interview."  
  
"What he means is it's how we're getting you into the room, so I can scare the shit out of this guy." Chaz cut through traffic in a way Langly hadn't seen outside of Grand Theft Auto.  
  
"After you finish scaring the shit out of _me_ ," Langly complained, as Chaz cut across two lanes in front of a semi. "Somebody could've warned me I should've been wearing the brown pants."  
  
"He's very good at this," Reid pointed out, a little breathlessly, one hand white-knuckled on his knee. "Better than I am, and that's saying something."  
  
"It's saying you're about to hyperventilate, and we all know it," Langly muttered, squeezing his eyes shut. "Where the hell are we going, anyway?"  
  
Chaz started to answer. "That whole crew's currently being held at Millb--"  
  
"No." What colour was left in Reid's face drained out. "No. Absolutely not. Turn around at the next exit. Take me back. Go without me."  
  
"Reid?" Langly's concern was audible.  
  
"Ah, Spencer? You all right?" Chaz cut through traffic, not taking his eyes off the road, as he aimed for the exit. Whatever this was, it was a conversation he had a sense he'd rather not be driving for, especially with hints of Reid's panic clattering at the edges of his mind. _Don't reflect and drive..._  
  
"Anywhere but there. I just... I can name five federal prisons within a few hours' drive that you'd start toward in this direction. I didn't realise that's where they'd been moved. I'd just assumed Petersburg or Lee. More likely Lee." Reid swallowed, breathing slowly. "The two of you have been handling this angle. I've been helping Fitz and Paul with the project data. I just... didn't think to check. I just didn't think."  
  
"Okay." Chaz nodded, spotting a diner in the commercial fringe at the highway off-ramp. "We're stopping for coffee, and somebody can tell me what's going on, and then we'll deal with it."  
  
Langly was glassy-eyed and staring into space, one thumb flicking. "Murder charges," he said, after a moment. "Shit, I _knew_ that."  
  
"Okay, okay, hold that thought. Let me put the car in park. I can do a lot of things at once, but I don't think this is a good combination." Chaz pulled into a space he might have nudged someone else out of, in front of the diner, turned the car off, and put the keys on the dashboard. He'd known Reid had spent some time in prison for a murder he hadn't committed, but the details in what he'd read had been scarce. And he'd _completely_ spaced that it had been Millburn. Hadn't seemed important at the time. "Let me have it."  
  
Langly watched as Reid turned in his seat, face apologetic, eyes hollow with despair, as he apparently offered a memory to Chaz, who looked increasingly ill as he examined it. He had some idea of what was passing between them, and he was very glad he was no part of it. A few nights in the drunk tank had been more than enough for him, particularly because he hadn't actually been drunk for any of them. Scrolling through these files again, as the twins freaked each other out, reminded him how incredibly lucky they'd all been, back in the day.  
  
"And now you know." Reid's back stiffened and his face blanked, his eyes lingering on Chaz's cheekbones. "We're _both_ the evil twin."  
  
Chaz pressed the heel of his hand against his eye. "Tell me it's not in our best interest to do what I'm thinking."  
  
"Whatever may have happened there, it's mostly over now," Reid reminded him, quietly. "Most of the pieces have been taken off the board. Besides, weren't you the one who said you didn't like doing that?"  
  
"I don't. I like what I'm seeing even less."  
  
It would be so easy, Chaz knew. There had been an investigation in the wake of all that -- he'd caught a hint of it -- but it hadn't gotten everyone involved. There hadn't been enough evidence. But, he could find out. He could know for sure. And then he could lean in just a little harder and-- _Stop that_. He reminded himself for the eighth time in twenty seconds that he was a federal agent, and there was a right way to go about things. A right way that had already failed, and he could-- _No_.  
  
But, he wouldn't feel bad about anything he might have to do to keep the promise he was about to make.  
  
"If you want to go home, we'll turn around. But, I want you to know that I can walk you in and back out of there, and no one will say _shit_ to you. No one will even recognise you."  
  
"You need to be focused on the interview, or it defeats the purpose of going," Reid argued, trying to wipe the sweat from his palms onto his pants.  
  
"By the time we get to the interview, that's all I'll need to have my eyes on," Chaz promised. "Have you looked at me, recently? Walking into prisons, even with a badge, is always an interesting experience."  
  
"This is a bad idea," Langly protested, from the back seat. "Did I ever tell you what happened the last time I was involved in someone breaking into a prison?"  
  
"We're not breaking in! We're walking right in the front door, like the law enforcement professionals we _are_." Chaz paused, waiting for Reid to look up. "And when we're done, we're walking _right back out_."  
  
It was subtle, because Chaz was trying to keep it to himself, but Reid could still feel his confidence, and under it, a pit of disgust-fuelled rage. In its own way, it was comforting -- someone else was angry about this, someone who hadn't known him for more than a third of his life. "Thank you. But, I don't know. Just give me a little time to think about it."  
  
"We did stop for coffee," Langly pointed out. "I could eat lunch again."

* * *

Somehow, Reid let himself be led. The sweat poured off him, as they drove through the gates, and his stomach clenched as they walked through the doors. There were faces he knew, here, but not well. No one this far out would remember him. A little further in, though... He kept his face blank, just another grim and slightly vacant suit. Chaz would handle this, Langly would handle the equipment, and all he'd have to do was keep his mouth shut and stay standing. He'd walked out of here, before, and he'd walk out, again.  
  
Chaz had his badge in his hand, before they'd made it across the entryway, and from a bit behind him, Reid watched the guard's face relax behind the glass, even as that wave of calm washed over him as well.  
  
"Agent Villette, ACTF. I called a few hours ago. We're here to talk to John Doe number six." Chaz cocked his head at Langly. "Polygraph, just in case he decides to start talking."  
  
"Good luck." The guard rolled his eyes, never even looking at Reid. "The guy's not talking and he's got no prints. Pretty sure he's getting sentenced just because he refuses to defend himself -- all of them. They're all like that."  
  
Chaz sighed loudly and shook his head. "Well, we'll see what we can do. Make sure we've got cameras and audio, in there. I brought a tech, but I want to make damn sure there's no questions about our recordings, later."  
  
"No problem. You're not lawyers, so it's all on the record." The guard punched a button and buzzed the door open, leaning back to call out to someone in the hall. "Jimmy, take the feds to see Six."  
  
It was completely surreal, Reid thought, to be coming through _this_ door. Not that he hadn't done it before. This was hardly the first time he'd had to interview someone here, but not since he'd _been here_. The team had made sure they arranged any interviews that needed to happen here so that someone else would go -- usually JJ and Simmons, whom he'd heard made a dangerous tag-team. Still, it was like being a ghost -- the panic had hit him so hard he'd stepped out of himself and his skin felt strangely distant from his bones, and the guard leading them spoke exclusively to Chaz, as if he and Langly didn't even exist, despite Chaz casually acknowledging their existence, in passing. No one would keep him here, he realised -- no one would even joke about it -- because they couldn't focus on him long enough to recognise him. It wasn't that Chaz was turning eyes away from him, but that Chaz was pulling the eyes to himself, which was why Langly was equally disregarded.  
  
As the interview room door closed behind them, Chaz took a deep breath and let go, watching the prisoner's eyes jump from him to Reid, as if Reid had appeared out of nowhere. Langly was still behind them, still mostly invisible behind the two agents who moved like mirror images of each other.  
  
"We have a few questions for you." Chaz's lips tipped up in a smile that looked catlike when it spread across Reid's face. "I understand you've been very good about keeping your identity to yourself -- no fingerprints? That's dedication to the craft. But, that ends here. We have contacts in other places, places where there are still records of you."  
  
With that nudge, the man's mind skated across places he'd been, people he'd known, people he'd been. And Chaz filtered it and shared with Reid.  
  
"We know who you are, Mr Echeverria. Former Medellín Lieutenant, right?" Reid straightened, his chin lifting just that little bit, and with the way Chaz habitually slouched, it brought them closer to the same height, making them all the more similar. "They got Escobar, but they didn't get you. But, we got you, and this time, there's no one to save you. No one knows who you are, here. No one has the kind of power Medellín held in Columbia."  
  
Which, he reflected, was probably a lie. Helmsman probably did wield that kind of power, but he doubted the man would wield it in defence of a contractor who'd failed at his duties. It was far more likely Enrique Echeverria would wind up murdered, once Helmsman discovered they'd figured out who he was. This was the one chance they had to extract information -- and they were lucky nobody had noticed they were the first agents on the scene, that they were the agents who'd shot the man in front of them, resulting in the cast he still wore on one leg. That might keep him safe a little longer, but Reid knew better than to expect a miracle.  
  
Echevarria shrugged, dismissively, mind still racing, and Chaz scraped through everything that floated to the top.  
  
"Look, we can get you a good deal. You just have to tell us about some other people." Chaz pulled out one chair on his side of the table and Reid pulled out the other. As they sat, Langly became visible between them, and Echevarria finally managed an expression other than boredom as he took in the black case in Langly's hand.  
  
Langly could tell Chaz was still pushing calm on their side of the table, and for once, he was grateful for it, as he bent forward, setting the case between his feet, and then leaning on the table between the twins. A sick, terrified anger twisted in his gut, and his eyes flashed. "Tell me about Paul Asher."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~Hahaha, accidentally took nine days off because I'm too sick to sit up consistently. DON'T WORRY, I HAVEN'T STOPPED WRITING.~~


	29. Chapter 29

Chaz watched the way Reid and Langly clung to each other the whole way back to Reid's apartment, both of them having opted for the back seat. It was a long drive made longer by the long stretches of ragged silence between them, as Reid stared hollowly, finally crushed under the panic he'd been holding off, and Langly trembled in his arms, angry and disgusted, under the terror that still crawled under his skin from hearing that voice again. Mercifully, Chaz was carrying music, and he turned up Siouxsie and the Banshees and rolled down his window, letting the smell of fear dissipate, to be replaced by the rush of air and the scent of autumn leaves and backed up traffic headed the other way.  
  
"Langly? Be my eyes." Chaz turned the music off as they approached Reid's neighbourhood. "I need you to help me. Who can see us? Who's watching the house?"  
  
Langly's eyes didn't look any less glassy, but the way his lips thinned and his thumb flicked left no question that he'd heard. "You want to finish the fight I'm going to start?"  
  
"Bollinger?" Reid cleared his throat, once he heard his own voice.  
  
"In the god damn alley, again. He's waiting for us. He knows you'll come home eventually, because I know this exact line of thought. I've used this exact line of thought. I was a real pain in the ass, once upon a time."  
  
"I mean, you still are a real pain in the ass." Chaz caught Langly's eye in the rearview mirror.  
  
"Screw you."  
  
"Yes, that's _exactly_ where I was going with that." Chaz lifted an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth followed it up.  
  
"Not until we get rid of Bollinger." Reid sounded a little more like himself, if still a bit spacey.  
  
"Part of me really doesn't want to throw him under the bus," Langly admitted. "And then I remember he's gotta learn this sometime, and better he learn it from me than in a way that's gonna get him killed. I mean, he's a kid. He's a reporter. He's guaranteed to do dumb shit. How much dumb shit did I do? Maybe not a question I'm actually going to answer. Except right now he's doing dumb shit that's probably going to get me shot, and that _pisses me off_."  
  
"You could try paying him off," Chaz suggested. "Here's a grant, go get yourself a gallery show with photos of consenting models."  
  
"It's rewarding shitty behaviour," Langly argued. "Turns into blackmail or he goes public with stories about corruption and bribes."  
  
"Yeah, but at the same time? Frain's paying him to do this, and she has a lot less backing than you do." Chaz pulled into something that wasn't really a parking space a couple blocks out.  
  
"Okay, but stopping him isn't enough. She'll get someone else, and then we won't know who we're looking for. And the problem's not Bollinger _or_ Frain, the problem's Narcisse." As he engaged a new problem, Reid seemed to become more solid, somehow, his voice stronger, the colour returning to his face.  
  
"And we can't stop Narcisse." Langly rolled his eyes so hard Chaz thought they'd come up sevens.  
  
Chaz turned around in his seat. "Get Frain out of the picture, and I bet _you_ could."  
  
Langly shook his head. "I don't think I can get close enough to find her. Physically close enough. They're never going to let me in the building with the defence she's inventing, and I'd have to get that close to cut down on the noise. I'm your standard-issue hacker turned up to eleven -- I don't see _weird_ shit. _Hafs_ might be able to do it, but I don't think I can from this far out. There's nothing to hold on to. I don't know what I'm looking for."  
  
"If you can't do it, Hafs can't do it unless we think she's a gamma like _you_ are," Chaz reminded him. "It's not weird shit -- well, it is weird shit -- but it's what you get when you use the Anomaly to affect digital systems."  
  
"You want to do this the legit way?" Langly asked them, after a moment, tipping his head at Reid. "He keeps threatening to file charges. This is the third time, and we've got witnesses and copies of the photos, and if we do this right, photos of him taking pictures into the building. We could just set the oink on his ass."  
  
Chaz snorted. "He says, in the car with two feds."  
  
"Hey, hey, you're _feds_ , all right? It's different."  
  
"After our last encounter with the locals around here..." Reid rubbed his face, tiredly. "We'll do that. That's probably actually a good idea. Mostly because you know it's not going to stop him, but it does give us leverage and the groundwork to shut him down, later, when that becomes a good idea. I just want to go upstairs and lie down, but not with Bollinger taking pictures of it."  
  
"Okay, we need a plan." Langly curled his fingers around Reid's hand, holding just a little too tight.  
  
"The two of you go upstairs, I'll go around the back. He can't _see me_." Chaz's eyes gleamed. "I'll get photos of him, the angle, the building. I need one of you to get photos from upstairs, if you can do it without spooking him. And Langly? Get his photos. We're gonna need some really obvious ones to use as evidence."  
  
"Done." Langly looked grim, for a second, but leaned over and kissed Reid, with a tiny smile. "C'mon Special Agent Sexy. Let's give him something to stare at."  
  
"Evidence photos," Reid reminded him. " _Evidence_. As in things that will be public record. I'll give you exciting, once we get rid of him."  
  
"Me too?" Chaz batted his eyes at Reid as he pulled his phone out of his pocket, then held up a hand as he made a call.

* * *

Reid watched out the window, as Bollinger was removed from the premises. The locals had, he thought, gone a little overboard upon being called by an irate FBI agent, and sent over two cars for something that should really only have taken one.  
  
"Thank you," he said to the young officer standing by the arm of the sofa, and she offered him a friendly smile.  
  
"Something easy and obvious like this? That all my calls should go so well. You said he's been following you for how long?"  
  
"About two weeks. We first encountered him on the thirteenth. Frank's got the photos, and he's passing them on to your partner, I think." Reid winced sympathetically as Langly's voice went up a few more notches. "Frank, be nice! It's over for now."  
  
"For now? Right. You know the statistics, don't you." The officer shook her head. "It just gets old, doesn't it."  
  
"At least this one's a journalist," Reid pointed out. "He's not likely to get more dangerous, just more persistent."  
  
"That's the truth."  
  
"But, the problem is... and I probably shouldn't bring this up, because it's a federal case, but it's context -- a matter of days after the first photographs were taken, Frank was abducted in connection with one of our cases, delayed by what we think was an attempt on _me_. The day after we brought him home, Bollinger showed up again, with his camera, that time taking photos through my window, just like he was, this time. I have a very bad feeling about where the pictures may be going. We're fairly sure that, at this point, someone else is paying him to play private investigator."  
  
"And I'm assuming he doesn't have a license for that."  
  
"It's a good assumption. Frank would know."  
  
On the other side of the room, Chaz kept Langly down to a dull roar, as they explained things to the other officer.  
  
"I don't care! Sit on him for something! I'm holding enough evidence to press charges for _something_!"  
  
Chaz plucked the flash drive out of Langly's hand and offered it to the officer. "Excuse him. He's been electrocuted in the last week. Makes him a little jumpy."  
  
"And it should!" Langly snapped. "And I don't like coincidences!"  
  
That officer shook his head and chuckled, before realising they weren't joking. "You're not serious..."  
  
"I'm dead serious. My consultant is having a very bad week, and that's why we're taking this very seriously, right now." Chaz looked as serious as his face would allow, which was a step short of terrifying to observe. "I don't have enough information to connect this to any of our open cases, but the timing looks very bad, and we are aware that Bollinger is being paid to take these photographs. Chalk that up to federal voodoo that went on during the commission of a crime, but it's not buried very deep. As Agent Reid and I are both handling open cases involving extremely dangerous people, at least two of whom have gone after Mr Arroway, in the last few months, we have some serious concerns about exactly what's going on here. A tabloid reporter wouldn't normally raise this level of concern, hence it taking us two weeks to bother reporting it outside of our own internal documentation."  
  
"Why didn't you arrest him, yourself?"  
  
"Can't," Langly pointed out. "It's not a federal crime."  
  
Chaz nodded. "We just wanted to skip the jurisdictional problems, in case it came to that. We benefit from playing it by the book, here."  
  
The officer nodded back. "I can respect that. Thanks for keeping your hands on your side of the line. Gets a little iffy with the feds, sometimes, not that I'm talking shit."  
  
"No, you're absolutely right," Langly said, shoving Chaz just hard enough that he rocked to the side. "Feds are a pain in the ass."  
  
After a few more minutes, the officers left with an assortment of handshakes and jokes about where to get good coffee. They all knew Bollinger would be back on the street in less than three days -- with a lawyer, a matter of hours -- but his car was being towed, so he'd have no good excuse to return.  
  
Reid locked the door and leaned his head against it. "I'm taking a shower," he decided. "I'm hallucinating, but I can still smell it."  
  
"Use my soap," Langly suggested. "It'll be distracting."  
  
"Give me your clothes and I'll wash them right now. Laundry's in the basement, right?" Chaz leaned on the corner of Reid's desk, staying out of the way.  
  
"Yeah." Reid took a deep breath and choked on it, shoving himself away from the door. He peeled off his sweater and threw it at Chaz, one hand unbuttoning his shirt as he reached for Langly with the other. "I'm so glad that you're alive. Have I said that, recently? It's important."  
  
"Can't die," Langly muttered against Reid's shoulder. "Already dead."  
  
"I'm serious."  
  
"It's gonna take more than this. Space lasers and shark-man weren't enough. I'm not so sure some jackass with a twenty-year vendetta that doesn't even belong to him even ranks."  
  
"He's got a point," Chaz admitted. "And yet? Enough bullets in the right places are still fatal, so try not to do anything stupid. You're progressively less hot, the more dead you get."  
  
"Does this mean I'd be twice as hot if I was still alive from the first time? God damn it." Langly slid Reid's shirt off his shoulders, letting it fall to the floor.  
  
"You'd be irresistible. Hordes of squealing fangirls. Straight men spontaneously questioning their sexuality."  
  
"Yeah, I already have that problem."  
  
"It's the legs."  
  
"Is there enough in my kitchen to make dinner?" Reid finally asked, as if the conversation hadn't gone on around him.  
  
"Well, it's not like you eat, so probably." Chaz shrugged, still not moving from where he still leaned against the desk.  
  
"A shower. I was going to take a shower." The words sounded like Reid was reminding himself. Still, he stopped to kiss Langly before he left the room, and Chaz could taste the crushing grief that hung behind it.  
  
Maybe bringing Reid hadn't been such a good idea, after all.

* * *

"Chicken and mushroom casserole," Langly said, as the bathroom door opened, and he smacked a set of clean, dry pyjamas against Reid's bathrobe-clad chest. "And I'm evicting your neighbours, tomorrow."  
  
"What did they do this time?" Reid turned his back and pulled on the pyjama pants under the bathrobe.  
  
"Just be glad you were taking a shower. You probably missed most of it. It wasn't something either of us needed, today." Langly took the bathrobe as Reid shrugged out of it to pull on the shirt.  
  
"I feel like _today_ was something neither of us needed, today." Reid let Langly help him back into the bathrobe, before turning back around and pulling him into a hug. "I love you so much. ... I say, as if it were a quantifiable thing."  
  
"They say it's the quality that counts, and this is definitely some top quality nerd love you're giving me." Langly buried his face against Reid's neck, realising that Reid actually had used his soap. "All we need is a Velvet Underground album, six pounds of dark chocolate, and a bed bigger than mine."  
  
"Not Bob Dylan?" Reid teased.  
  
"Bob D--" It took a second for the punchline to hit, and Langly could tell which of the twins it belonged to. "Villette, knock it off! I'm gonna come over there and kick your ass!"  
  
"Lay, lady, lay... Lay across my big brass bed..." Chaz sang from the kitchen, amusement clear in his voice.  
  
"That is the last time you are ever going to see me in a dress. The. Last."  
  
Chaz leaned out of the kitchen, complete with patented tactical sadface. "I take it back. All of it. You know I'd never call you a lady."  
  
Reid started snickering and let go of Langly to press a hand over his mouth, eyes wide and apologetic.  
  
"Oh, for the love of Linus Torvalds, what now?"  
  
"Luck, if you ever were a lady to begin with..." Reid wheezed, mostly in tune, between the incessant giggles, as he staggered back into the bathroom, grabbing a towel to hold uselessly between himself and Langly.  
  
Langly blinked slowly, opened his mouth, closed his mouth, and slammed the bathroom door between them.  
  
From somewhere on the other side of the door, Chaz yelped. "Hey, at least he's laughing, now!"  
  
And Reid realised that was the point. Even Langly had mostly bounced back already, but he'd been caught in this sickening spiral downward since he'd realised where they were going. It wasn't rational, it wasn't reasonable, and he couldn't seem to shake it. But, he was home now... and his home had been violated, once again. Maybe he'd go home with Langly, tonight. As much as he'd wanted to come back here and take comfort in his own space and things being where they belonged, there was something to be said for foot-thick walls and surveillance jamming.  
  
He opened the door to the sound of Chaz and Langly laughing hysterically in the kitchen, and made his way across the apartment to discover them tangled up in each other with two wooden spoons and absolutely no reasonable intent.  
  
"Do I want to know?" Reid asked, still holding his own thoughts to himself, even as Chaz looked up at him eyes concerned despite the whoop of laughter.  
  
"He's ticklish," Langly declared, pinching Chaz's hip again.  
  
"Oh my god, knock it off!" Chaz batted at him with a wooden spoon that clattered to the floor as one of Reid's memories vaulted the gate and slammed across the front of his mind. "Langly? Stop."  
  
Langly looked up to find Reid with one hand wrapped around the other wrist, eyes vacant, looking like a stiff wind would knock him over. He and Chaz unwound from each other, Langly setting aside the spoon he still held. "Reid? Hey, talk to me. One of us isn't psychic. You okay?"  
  
"It's just us, Spencer," Chaz promised, over Langly's shoulder. "It's just me and Langly. We're not going to hurt each other. You're home."  
  
"I know." Reid sounded distant as he looked up and caught Chaz's eye. "You always wondered what it would look like when I fell apart..."  
  
"If this is falling apart, I have absolutely no concerns about the future of our collective mental health." Chaz took stock of the situation. "Okay. Kitchen's too small for three of us, which is how this started. You go sit on the couch; I'm going to deal with the food. Langly, make sure he's okay. I've got dinner."  
  
"I know everything's fine. I know we've taken care of it. I know this isn't rational, but I can't make it stop." Reid backed out of the kitchen door and tripped on the coffee table, on his way to the couch, a sure sign he wasn't well. "It's supposed to stop. _I live here_."  
  
"Spencer, you know better, and so do I. Panic listens to no man. It'll stop. It always stops. Things just have to be normal for a while, and if there's something I'm pretty sure we haven't achieved at any point, today, it's _normal_." Chaz pulled a pan out of the oven that, the longer he looked at it, the more sure he was that it was his own. What had he brought over in that? "And it's probably not going to get normal until after dinner, because your boyfriend decided we needed something that looked like the Easter Bunny vomited it up as a side dish."  
  
"Something something gammas, something something caloric density, what is it you always say? It's got pineapple and marshmallows in it, and it tastes good, so you can shut the hell up," Langly huffed, curling up next to Reid, on the sofa.  
  
"Take me home with you, tonight," Reid breathed, putting his arms around Langly. "I just want to feel safe, and right now, I can't do that here."  
  
"Left your car at work, anyway," Langly reminded him. "What time are you supposed to be there?"  
  
"As long as it's before nine, nobody's going to notice."  
  
"Awesome. We can do this." Langly nodded, turning to drape himself across Reid's lap. "Hey. I love you."  
  
"Really?" It wasn't even doubt. He just wanted reassurance this was something safe to hold on to.  
  
"No, you prick, I'm just saying it for your birthday," Langly huffed, suddenly furious that the world had broken Reid so badly. "Yes, really."  
  
"You're everything I never knew I wanted. Please don't die."  
  
"Pfft. Die," Langly scoffed, rolling his eyes. "Maybe you'll have to learn to love the machine, but I fully intend to transcend the bounds of human mortality."  
  
Chaz leaned out of the kitchen with a plate. "And I'm just going to interrupt this before someone breaks into a chorus of Love Never Dies. Take this. You should eat. Both of you should eat. It's a lot easier to be maudlin when you're hungry."


	30. Chapter 30

Chaz had been right, as Reid knew he would be. A plate of casserole had done wonders for his mood, and he was back up to flat and distant, but able to make a joke. It was the kind of shift that didn't seem better from the outside, unless you'd been there, and all of them had.   
  
Now, Reid and Chaz sat side by side on the couch, with Langly sprawled across them, and the discussion had turned to what they'd learnt from Echeverria.  
  
"I thought he was going to piss himself. That was incredible." Langly cackled with glee. "The only thing better would've been if he had, because he owes me that much."  
  
"I think kicking him in the face probably covered that," Chaz joked, absently kneading Langly's leg.  
  
"I still can't believe you convinced him I didn't kick him in the face," Reid groaned. "I know that's going to come back on me somewhere."  
  
"It's not." Chaz shook his head. "The guy's an old-school cartel man. Even if he does remember, he's never going to say anything. It would make him look bad."  
  
"So, this really is about Paul," Langly observed, fishing another marshmallow out of the bag on the coffee table. "It's about Paul being completely fucking unable to stop kicking hornets' nests in his copious spare time."  
  
"Oh, because you really have room to talk?" Chaz laughed, holding Langly's leg against an attempt to mash a foot into his face. "But, yeah. Basically, from what I can tell, Echeverria doesn't know much about what's going on up here. He's gone from Medellín to... Envigado, I think, and he's pissed about an agreement that Asher negotiated between the CIA and the Columbian government to take out the upper levels of Medellín. They used to be on pretty good terms with some parts of the government, there, until the War on Drugs got nasty. That's just the basic State Department briefing that everybody slept through at the Academy. Either way, Asher's agreement was the last nail in the coffin for Medellín, so when Helmsman went looking for people he could count on not to ask questions and that he could wash his hands of, if anything went wrong, the old Medellín lieutenants floated to the top of the stack."  
  
"I thought the other team was Salvadoran." Reid knew perfectly well Chaz had identified them as Salvadoran, but he also knew the circumstances had been less than ideal.  
  
"They are. Paul Asher's done a lot of work that directly affected the cartels from Mexico all the way down, because he does analyses of military interventions and the benefits of training the locals to do their own work. The Air Force audit's a weird one that he stumbled into sideways, after pulling the numbers for something else. He started it, so they gave it to him to finish."  
  
"Right. Got that part. I could tell you how often Asher brushes his god damn teeth," Langly reminded them, through a mouthful of marshmallows. "Kind of an expert on the guy who stole my best friend's shitty girlfriend."  
  
"Little bitter over there?" Chaz raised his eyebrows.  
  
"Holly-from-a-sugar-packet, the tooth-pulling wonder, created my life. I'd have been ... god only knows what I'd have been. Probably not still selling bootleg cable. Maybe I'd have gone straight, like Kimmy. Maybe I'd have turned fed, like Vanity and the Black Queen. But, you know what the fuck I wouldn't be? Living in a goddamn bunker, pretending to be dead. Am I bitter? You're goddamn right I'm bitter." Langly shook his head. "And, you know, it's not a bad life, since we survived it. It's really not. I've got a big bed, a hot boyfriend, and all the hardware I could ever want to string together. And I'd be a lot less pissed about it, if she hadn't taken thirty fucking years to break up with Byers. Thirty years! Who does that? Okay, I'm mostly pissed about Byers, who I wouldn't even know without her, but that doesn't make it any less shitty. And then we find her, and she married him, and this looks like it could get a happy ending, but she's going around with this desk-jockey--"  
  
"Wasn't Byers a desk-jockey, when they met?" Reid pointed out. "She's got a type." He looked down the couch at Chaz and tried to lean over Langly for the laptop on the table. "Somebody else grab that. I think she does have a type. I don't know if it's relevant, but we haven't figured out how she works, yet. Brown hair, light eyes, federal employee doing fairly serious work of the kind that usually gets done anonymously and invisibly, a little younger than she is and probably easily impressed with her..."  
  
"Got dumpy after fifty," Langly muttered against Reid's shirt.  
  
"We'll look at it later. Gotta get Helmsman, first, then we'll straighten out the weird gamma shit, before we send Holly and Paul home." Chaz shook his head. "And it is _weird_ gamma shit. It still bothers me."  
  
"What do we know about Helmsman?" Reid let himself fall back against the couch and stroked Langly's face apologetically. "I'm hesitant to make speculations about demographics, on the one hand, but given what we know about Ray Helm, it's fairly likely we're looking at a white male, forties to fifties, career military. Someone with a fairly subtle problem with authority, not because it is authority, but because he finds it insufficiently reactive. This is someone who doesn't feel like his complaints are being taken seriously, at the policy level, and Overlord provided the opportunity to completely circumvent policy, to write policy, to fight the battles that, in their minds, everyone else was too much the coward to take on."  
  
"If that's it, they're fucking delusional. They tried to drop a commercial flight into the middle of a city. I don't really see where that's fighting the good fight. That's sacrificing hundreds, if not thousands, of your own people." Langly shook his head. "And we _don'_ t actually know for sure what the hell was going on there, because _somebody_ decided Kimmy and I didn't work fast enough and pulled the entirely literal plug on us when we almost had the file we needed."  
  
"Well, what we know for certain is that he's got access to the same information about Asher that we do." Chaz leaned over and picked up Langly's laptop, bringing up the document they'd all been working on, as they went through the files again. "But, Asher's not particularly secretive. He's got a lot of casual acquaintances among his co-workers, keeps pictures of Holly and Allie on his desk. The man's pretty well-liked, well-known, and nobody's wary about talking about him. Well, until now." He noticed both Reid and Langly looking at him oddly. "What? Am I bleeding? Is it a spider?"  
  
"Your hair..." Reid didn't finish the sentence.  
  
"Working with us that rough?" Langly teased.  
  
Chaz squeezed his eyes shut. "Shit. Forgot to dye it last week. I have to touch up the roots so no one notices. I mean, they all know, but without the reminder, they forget."  
  
"Little young to be going grey, aren't you?" Langly grinned, nudging Chaz's arm with his heel. "Youngest one in the room, first one with grey streaks?"  
  
"Silver, technically. And I'm lucky it's that. When it first happened, it was white." Chaz ran a hand through his hair, the light from the laptop catching it in a way the rest of the light hadn't. "Bad case. Stupid decision. When it was all over, though, everyone was still alive. Well, everyone I wanted to survive it... I was a little touch and go, for a few days. Lost weight, turned funny colours, some of my hair fell out. I got better." He shrugged. "My hair didn't come back in the right colour, though. I dye it a little at a time, and nobody remembers. They all think I recovered from that."  
  
"Just like they all think your shoulders work like they're supposed to." Reid gave him a wry look.  
  
"Because you have room to talk."  
  
"I do!" Reid smiled brightly. "I'm full of the exact same kind of shit!"  
  
"Respect!" Langly touched his fingertips to his chest. "I'm the oldest one in the room, and I'm in better shape than the better parts of both of you combined."  
  
"Lies. Pick your challenge, and I'll kick your ass." Chaz jabbed a finger at Langly.  
  
"I'm not even getting involved in this." Reid shook his head and held up his hands. "I barely pass the Bureau physical, but I do finally actually pass it." He caught the way Chaz was looking at him. "Special dispensation. I wasn't really supposed to be a field agent. Couldn't pass the physical and I couldn't shoot straight. I was just supposed to handle data -- _desk work_."  
  
"You and me both, but at least I could pass the physical." Chaz still looked stunned. He'd recognised that Reid had come into certain advantages he'd lacked, but this was... Well, really, he'd only even taken this path because of Reyes, who'd been subtly adjusting the world around him to encourage it, for years. Not, perhaps, an 'advantage' as such, but unquestionably the same level of high-level jerking things around. He wondered if they both hadn't been railroaded, if in slightly different ways.  
  
"Anyway, Helmsman." Langly debated sitting up, before deciding it was too much effort for absolutely no reward. "Career military, has a spy network that's probably better than me because there's only one of me, and has some weird ideas about what protecting the American people actually entails, if he's anything like Overlord. And he's using cartel assassins, because they've already got a reason to go after Asher."  
  
"It was supposed to be blackmail, or his people would have gone after Asher directly, in the first place," Reid pointed out. "But, why didn't they kill Holly? She's the first one who got taken. She was missing for almost six months, and Asher did nothing, because like Allie said, it wasn't unusual for her mother to take a few months to travel, every couple of years. Which means no one actually told Asher she'd been taken. And that sounds like the opposite of blackmail."  
  
"How sure are we that they don't know who she is?" Chaz asked, after a moment's consideration. "Remember what she said when we opened the door? Her captors had been trying to get her to tell them something. They weren't just holding her for leverage, at that point."  
  
"There's no reason they'd know. She's Holly Fitzgerald. Susanne Modeski doesn't exist any more." Langly stretched, barely missing Reid's face.  
  
"Holly _Byers_ , former wife of _John Byers_." Reid's eyes widened. "It's how they found the house. They picked her up because of Asher, ran a background, and connected her to Byers. And that's when she became an interesting asset on her own. Like you said -- it's an inherited vendetta. And Echevarria was asking you about Byers."  
  
"But, they still needed to stop Asher, so they grabbed Allie." Chaz nodded slowly. "That's a lot of months, though. What slowed them down?"  
  
"Asher was waiting for a response they thought they'd ensured he wasn't going to get, so he'd put the project aside, again, and moved on to another division." Reid pointed at Chaz. "Check the dates, but I'm right. And then they had to import another team and set up the abduction."  
  
Langly nodded. "They needed someone disposable. Instead, they got Allie. I still think we should've given her my jacket and let her take out the whole building."  
  
"As a federal agent," Reid started, tipping his head toward Chaz.  
  
"... I can't advocate that." Chaz tipped his head toward Reid. "That said, the further we get from the moment, the better idea I think that would've been."  
  
"What about the other detainees?" Reid asked, brow furrowing as he tried to work out the specific purpose of the facility they'd found Holly in.  
  
"Detainees?" Langly scoffed. "A little legitimate, don't you think? Captives, maybe? Victims?"  
  
"Victims," Reid conceded.  
  
"Mostly political opposition. Some ... more active activists, a handful of journalists. Looking at the work these people have done, they're almost all vocally anti military overreach. A lot of them have also done work on the demographics of acts of mass violence -- everything from shooting sprees and bombs to people driving their cars across parade routes and protest marches. If we're gonna be honest, I recognise some of these names, now that I have the time to really look." Langly grabbed another handful of marshmallows, and Chaz cut in while he was chewing.  
  
"Demographics on acts of mass violence? Oh, oh, we're profilers! Let me guess -- perpetrators are, ah, white males, twenties to thirties, lower middle to upper middle class, primarily from single-parent households or homes with a coercive or physically dominant parent, triggered by someone they've been raised to think of as 'lesser' rejecting them in some way or having achievements that exceed their own? Bonus points if you can work in something about shame on the family or the race."  
  
"Bingo. Special Agent Stick Figure gets it in one." Langly tossed a marshmallow to Chaz.  
  
" _Stick Figure?_ " Chaz sputtered, snatching the marshmallow out of the air. "You're lucky I like you."  
  
"He loves me. Doesn't stop him from calling me 'Chicken-No-Chopsticks'." Reid kneed Langly in the back.  
  
"Hey, I report what I see!" Langly laughed. "And what I'm seeing, here, is people trying to break the assumed truths of the 'War on Terror'."  
  
"Honestly, if we're right about some of the projects Asher worked on the funding and analyses for..." Chaz sucked air between his teeth. "CIA assassinations blamed on local agitators? These sound like people who are trying to stop that shit from being brought home."  
  
"Which, hilariously, Asher is also trying to stop." Langly rolled his eyes. "Points for absolute balls-out hypocrisy, there, Paul, ol' buddy, ol' pal."  
  
"But, we still don't know where to look for Helmsman." Reid shoved a hand through his hair in frustration. "He's invisible!"  
  
"Every number we have for him is disconnected. He's doing telephony like I do telephony, except he's using blocks of numbers that belong to the Air Force. This isn't going to be as easy as putting eyes on the purchaser of a disposable cel, not that that's easy. We need to get him making a call. I can't even find his office -- that part of the network's not static, so even where I've _managed_ to get network logs, they don't actually tell me shit. It's physically wired, so you have to be on an approved port to get in, but it's all dynamic addresses after that. Which... doesn't mean shit, if I can figure out what building we're looking for. I stopped looking, when I hit dynamic addressing, but things have changed. I'm pretty sure all I need is the right building and an open network port, and I can physically diagram the entire network and pick up where he's coming from. I have to go back and look for the block assignments again. There has to be a way to tell which specific building that block belongs to... unless... No, there would be a router in the building, with a non-overlapping range. Nobody designs a network that badly... except the US government, yes, I know that, thank you Byers."  
  
"We'd still have to get you into the building," Chaz pointed out, watching Langly's thoughts spool onto the document he had open.  
  
"First we find the building. Then we care. Besides, I'm pretty sure you can get us into anywhere, and if you can't do it alone, the two of us can."  
  
"That may be a dangerous assumption."  
  
"Listen, I've been kidnapped and electrocuted, in the last week. Half my life has been a series of dangerous assumptions, acted on in good faith. What is the actual worst thing that could happen?"  
  
"They kill us," Chaz declared, without even a moment's thought.  
  
"There are fates worse than death, Villette."  
  
"No, there really aren't. That's the one you don't recover from."  
  
"There are when the well-being of the nation is at stake. So, they kill us. Oh, no. Someone else can pick up the pieces. No, what's worse than death is they get information out of us or fucking brainwash us -- and that's an _again_ , for me, thanks -- and destroy the entire opposition from the inside, using us as weapons." Langly tipped his head to the side, tapping it against Reid's ribs. "Yeah, okay, that's actually pretty bad. We need a good plan. But, first, we need to figure out where we're going, which is going to be a giant pain in my ass, because they've got logs, but the log rotation is short enough that they're almost useless. Shit, this is stupid. Anyone got a better plan?"  
  
"It's someone Helm knew well," Reid pointed out. "Someone he trusted to take his place, rather than a usurper, with a name like 'Helmsman'. But, we've been through the official list of everyone who worked for him, and most of them are so far outside the range they're nearly impossible choices -- left the country, died, never had the skills for this kind of work, retired, otherwise discharged from the service, severely disabled..."  
  
"And the others are still pretty ridiculous choices -- civilian contractors, people who didn't like him, people who didn't work for him for more than a few months..." Chaz put his feet up on the coffee table.  
  
"What if we assume his first choice was actually _Byers_?" Langly squinted at the corner of the bookcase across the room. "No, that's stupid. Byers was a means to an end. You don't give your empire to somebody who's not supposed to survive to see it."  
  
Reid blinked a few times. "Wait, no, go back. Byers Senior was Helm's best friend, wasn't he? 'Uncle Ray'?"  
  
"You're thinking it went wrong way before I'm thinking he even thought of it." Langly blinked and pushed up his glasses. "I'm ... gonna have to talk to Byers about that, but I don't think it works. Byers was FCC, and we're back to the wrong org problem."  
  
"Byers had access to the Department of Defence systems--"  
  
"Not _legally_!" Langly's eyes widened. "Oh, did we skip the part of the story where the _other_ FCC guy got dragged off by the Men in Black, for Byers's trespasses? Well, I mean, I think that was Byers's trespasses. He might've been hogging mainframe time to amp up his video games."  
  
"I think we need to take a better look at dead people," Chaz decided, staring out the window through the sheer drapes. "It's something we keep hitting. Everyone is dead. Including you. Ray Helm's dead, John Byers is dead, Susanne Modeski is dead... All of the original hands on the project are dead. We keep hitting dead ends because of dead people, and we know a statistically unlikely number of those people are still alive. What if we look at the dead people who used to work for Helm? How many of them had the skills we're looking for? And if you're right about Byers, Spencer, we need to be considering his friends' children, regardless of whether they ever worked directly for him or even with him, as long as they're ... let's go broad. As long as they're DoD. We can cut the list down as we move in."  
  
"I know we need to get this guy, or he's very literally going to kill us all, but I am so tired of this case. I've been living and breathing it for months. We all have. And we've got no support, and nobody knows what we're working on, except Falkner and Prentiss, because we can't talk about it." Reid groaned and tipped his head back as far as it would go, pressing his hands over his face. "I'm just whining. I'm tired, I'm angry, this case is _garbage_ and it keeps getting worse, there's a reporter taking photos through my windows, I just visited the prison I spent way too long in, and--"  
  
"You, me, and the range, tomorrow," Chaz suggested. "We'll go shoot things until you feel better. If it was me, I'd go throw myself at the ground a few times, but I know exactly how thrilled you aren't with that idea."  
  
"Pass. It's one more thing to deal with. I know you'll be checking to make sure I haven't been replaced by an alien impostor, but I think I can just sleep it off. I'll be all right, tomorrow."  
  
"Uh-huh. 'Sleep'. That's exactly why you're coming home with me." Langly smirked and nodded.  
  
"Your house is safe. No one's found it yet. And I know you're going to exhaust me so completely, I'm not even going to dream." Reid looked down at Langly and smiled pleasantly. "So, yes. Sleep."  
  
"I'm just going to go home and try not to intrude." Chaz cleared his throat. "Just gonna ... not have a repeat of the other night. Sorry about that."  
  
"Don't you have a birthday on Wednesday?" Reid's eyes sparkled in the dim light, as he turned them on Chaz. "We've got a few things to share with you."  
  
"And that's either going to be tomorrow or Thursday, because I have plans. ... The same plans I have every year, Pinky. To try to take over the -- No, no. I'm dragging half my team out to the Rocky Horror with me, so I can do bad Tim Curry impressions all night." Chaz's eyes widened as his smile didn't, in a terrible impression of innocence. "You should come with us. I think we're still short Brad and Janet."  
  
This time, Langly _did_ kick him in the face.


	31. Chapter 31

"Good morning!" Langly announced to Byers, as he patted him on the shoulder, leaving the motorcycle parked exactly in the way of any impending deliveries.  
  
"It's the middle of the night, Langly. Tell me you didn't just come straight back here..." Byers looked strained, having started to review the evening's conclusions, after the meeting in Reid's living room broke up.  
  
"Bollinger's spending a night in the tank, and I took out a quarter of the city's surveillance grid, because that's exactly how many fucks I just can't give, right now." Langly's smile was nothing short of antagonistic.  
  
"He has one fuck to give, and I'm about to take advantage of it," Reid said quietly, offering an apologetic shrug. "I know there are a lot of upsetting conclusions, tonight, but we'll talk about it... well, you and Langly should talk about it, tomorrow. I actually have to go to work. I'm pretty sure we're wrong in a few places, and he thinks we're wrong in some others, but you'll be able to tell us. But, right now, I just need it to stop being today." He paused. "Give us an hour, so I can get to sleep, and then if you need him, that's between the two of you."  
  
"Dr Reid, I don't know what you--"  
  
"Byers, _I know_. It's fine. I'm glad you've had the experience, and I'm sure there are a lot more words I could use to express why this is a good thing, but I'm really very tired, and I just want you to know I'm not going to be upset if you need him more than I do, right now. It's been a very difficult day, all around, and I'd really like that to stop."  
  
"Hey, I'm easy," Langly volunteered.  
  
"I'm ... pretty sure we just established that," Byers retorted, horrified, embarrassed, and flushed pink.  
  
"And you know, this wasn't what I meant at all, when I said that, but you looked guilty." Reid looked faintly amused. "I figured I should clarify that I'm not upset by it, before that got any more awkward."  
  
Langly cleared his throat and tossed an arm around Reid's shoulders, leading him toward the stairs. "Bed. Now. You and me and a pile of blankets." He looked back over his shoulder. "If you need my hot ass for anything before morning, drop me a message, and I'll come to you."

* * *

Langly was down to just his shirt, as usual, and Reid was wrapped tight around him, all bare skin and panicked complaints about the day.  
  
"That is my home, and same as last time, moving isn't actually going to help me. It's just going to move the problem to a different address with me. This is ridiculous. I can't have this going on, and I'm not going to board up my windows, just so I can get a night's sleep in my own home!"  
  
"You know we own your building, right? I can fix this for you." Langly kneaded Reid's back, stroking the skin, prodding the tense muscles. "Six days, at the outside, and nobody will be able to see through your windows. I said I meant to replace them, and I meant to do it for the whole building, but we'll start with yours. It'll be a test of the product with contractors I'd let into _my_ house."  
  
"What good are new windows going to do? They're still glass. You can still see through them!" Reid clutched at the back of Langly's shirt, twisting at the fabric.  
  
"Triple-glazed, impact-resistant, photovoltaic, one-way windows. You want to go real fancy, I'll get the ones with the steel blinds between the panes. For just a little fancier, we can go with self-defrosting windows, which cut down on thermal signatures behind them, because they're warm on the outside and insulated behind that." Langly kissed the top of Reid's head. "No one's going to be able to see into your apartment, and the solar system means you have some amount of backup power in case the electric goes out. We do it here, too. You keep the place you like, but let me make it better. Let me make it safe, again."  
  
"Langly, you can't just throw money at--"  
  
"Yes, I can. We own the building, and we have to replace the windows anyway. There's no reason not to just put good windows in the whole building. We're just... starting with you. I also want to take a look at your front door. I know the walls won't take a _good_ door, but I'm pretty sure I can put in something with a better seal, at least. Some real pain in the ass locks. Won't stand up to a battering ram, but it should keep gas, cameras, and eighty-something percent of burglars out."  
  
"I'm curious about your definition of 'good door', in this context, if that's not it." Reid shifted slightly, relaxing just a bit, as Langly kept talking.  
  
"The ones we've got here. Vault doors in metal frames with acid-resistant seals. You can't put something that heavy in the walls you've got. Those floors will bow, and if you lean on the door wrong it'll take half the wall in with it. Gotta go with something lighter. Like I said, they're not going to be much good against a battering ram -- the frames'll pop right out, if you hit them in the right place, with the kind of power those things pack, but that's a fault of the wall, not the door. Right now, your _door_ is just the weaker point than the edge of the frame." A smile played at the edges of Langly's mouth. "Your problem is you live like an FBI agent -- trust me, I've known a few -- but this case means you should be living like you're CIA."  
  
Reid finally laughed. The entire situation was completely ridiculous, if he was honest with himself, and Langly had just picked up on why. He'd just stepped into something involving local and international espionage, on two different cases, and a high-level, high-secrecy side project of the Air Force, wielding at least two drug cartels that were pissed off at the CIA and the State Department. This wasn't even his job, if he was going to be honest about it. This wasn't just above his pay grade, it shouldn't even have been a Bureau problem. Except for the part where it had involved American actors abducting American citizens and at least one transport across state lines. He could argue it should've gone to the CIA, after the connection to the cartels was made, but somehow he wasn't sure they'd do a much better job of protecting him -- and the rest of their makeshift team -- than he'd been doing, himself.  
  
"Langly? If I let you do this, you have to be there. You have to stay in my apartment until this is finished. I have to go to work, and I need to know someone's _there_ , if there's a whole wall out."  
  
"Done. I mean, I'm not going to be much good, if someone _does_ try to break in, but while you're not there, it's me and the entire construction team, so I'm not too worried. But, if we're going to do it, we have to do it _now_ , because this is going to get _nasty_ if it gets any colder. It should've been done a month ago. And if we're going to be in the wall anyway, I'm fixing the heater. Less than a week, and you'll have a nice warm apartment that's not heating the birds on the roof across the way. And most of that time's going to be the scheduling gap, because I can't get anyone out faster than that." Langly tipped his head back and took one hand off Reid's back. "Two days. Living room first, then the kitchen. ... Come the fuck on, Cedric, I pay better rates than you're getting from Eastbrook, move it up! ... I'll get Byers to call during business hours. We'll fix this."  
  
"Cedric?" Reid untucked his head from under Langly's chin and looked up.  
  
"Like I said. We've got contractors. Cedric did Muringa's skylights -- he's a good guy. We just have to wave money at him, sometimes, to, ah... encourage minor deviations from his plans for any given week. 'The client's a fucking federal agent' should move his ass, this time, but I'll still pay him the emergency rate." Langly looked down at Reid and smiled. "Our contractors like us, I like you... this all ends in you getting cool shit you need anyway."  
  
"Any other day, I'd dispute the 'need anyway' part of that, but I'll let you have it, this time."  
  
"Oh, good. Because otherwise I was going to have to get all bitchy slumlord on you, and do the renovations anyway, because we really _are_ doing the whole building."  
  
"... Langly, don't be an ass."  
  
"I've got all the ass I need, right here." Langly slid a hand down Reid's back, to rest it in the obvious place. "Did I tell you I like yours? Because you have a great ass."  
  
"Do I?" Reid wrapped his leg tighter around Langly and rolled back. "Have you tested that theory recently? I think maybe you need more empirical evidence before drawing that conclusion."  
  
"Oh, do I?" Langly lifted himself with the hand that wasn't pinned under Reid's ass. "And how, pray tell, do you propose I get that evidence, hmm?"  
  
Reid swallowed and closed his eyes, and Langly braced himself. This wasn't going to be a reasonable proposition, or at least it wasn't going to be the sort of thing he'd come to expect from Reid, and given today, he had to wonder.  
  
"From behind me," Reid breathed, trying to focus on what he and Chaz had done, before it had gone wrong. "I've heard the view's better, for this kind of research."  
  
Langly took a deep breath. "You sure about this?"  
  
"Am I sure this is going to work the way I want it to? No. But, I'm sure I want to try." Reid stayed very still, watching Langly's face, paying attention to which muscles moved as Langly shifted against him.  
  
"You sure this isn't something you want to work out with Chaz, first? I mean, between us, we don't really have the--"  
  
"Yes. I'm sure." Moving very deliberately, Reid reached up and pulled Langly down, kissing his lips, then along his jaw. "You're giving me windows. I should be sure we can make use of them."  
  
"Oh my god." Langly groaned, shivering as the thought sparked along his nerves. "Oh my god, am I even awake? This has to be a dream. A dream about your dream. Are you even serious?"  
  
"I've never tried to get past this. There was no reason to bother. It wasn't something I was going to need." A small sound of amusement caught in Reid's throat. "But, you're giving me a reason, and it's _my_ reason. And I'm definitely going to want to test the glass before we try it -- I know the light levels and how close we are to the pane will affect visibility, but if we can make it work, I want to. I want you to put me up against those windows that no one else can see through and fuck me until I'm dripping with sweat and semen, to give me what I want until I can't take any more."  
  
Langly's breath stuttered. "Okay, and that is how you make me come without touching me. I am just... not going to move for a minute, here, so I don't completely lose it all over you."  
  
"Maybe I want you to. You'll recover." Reid rolled his hips and straightened his leg, pressing closer against Langly, who was already tight against him.  
  
And that was all it took. A small, desperate sound wrenched out of Langly as his body tensed, eyes unfocusing, despite his intentions to the contrary. He really was easy, he reflected, and he always had been. Well, one kind of easy, anyway. He supposed it made up for being a difficult bastard about everything else, including actually getting to this point.  
  
Reid nudged Langly off himself, rolling to the side as he kept a grip on Langly's arm. A few sharp angles and a bit of adjustment laid his back flat against Langly's chest, and he reminded himself to breathe. "Just hold me, touch me, talk to me. Actually, talking is probably the important part."  
  
"You just wrung my brains out my dick, and you want me to talk?" Langly laughed breathily against the back of Reid's neck. "You don't need me to make sense, do you?"  
  
"Only a little. Just keep talking." Reid could feel the inside of his mouth drying out. " _Tell me_."  
  
" _Oh_." Langly let his hand follow the lines of Reid's body, focusing on the feel of skin against his fingertips, but the nervousness between them kept him from coming up with anything that wasn't either ridiculous or probably a quote from some porno he'd watched twenty years ago. He went with ridiculous. "Do I start with the part where I apologise for calling you a discount grad-student?"  
  
Reid cackled, pressing a hand to his face. "I forgot that. I absolutely forgot you did that."  
  
"Oh, yeah. Same day I set off the vicious attack chair that knocked the crap out of both of us, and then you decided you liked sniffing my crotch. Weirdo."  
  
"Hey, I never said that!"  
  
"You strongly implied that," Langly argued, flicking a thumb across Reid's nipple. "But, hey, you're cute, and maybe I'm into that. Definitely into you."  
  
"And I'm so glad you are." Reid twisted so he could see over his shoulder, the next sentence writing and rewriting itself behind his eyes. Finally, he settled on, "I really enjoy just ... being with you."  
  
"Yeah, and you like it better when I don't have pants on."  
  
"Not 'better', but I like that, too. I like it best when you're doing things I can't even begin to comprehend, while I'm editing and reviewing. When we can both just be in the same space, doing what we'd be doing anyway. It's comfortable. I've never really had that before."  
  
Langly propped himself up on the arm that had been uncomfortably wedged between them. "God, that's such a _function_ around here, I don't even think about it."  
  
"You're a whole lot of new experiences, for me, and that's... not usually something I want out of life. I don't like surprises; I'm not really big on new things." Reid put a hand over Langly's on his chest. "But, I like most of the experiences we've had, together."  
  
"Except this goddamn case."  
  
"This case, the other case, that one case..." Reid shrugged one shoulder. "They're cases. I'm not supposed to like them, but they're also not supposed to end up in my living room. I'm supposed to be the investigator, not the _victim_." He paused. "And yet, there's a pattern here..."  
  
"I wasn't going to say it." Langly looked amused. "You're really gorgeous, you know that?"  
  
"You have your glasses off."  
  
"Who says I'm talking about your face?" Langly scoffed. "I mean, yeah, I like your face, too, but pretty much everything about you is hot. What's not to like?"  
  
"I could hand you a list, but I feel like this is not the time."  
  
"Mmm. Wasn't I supposed to be making empirical observations of your hot ass, so you'll let me tell you that, objectively, you have a hot ass?"  
  
"Subjectively."  
  
"Objectively. Fight me."  
  
"Not in bed."  
  
"That's fair. I'd rather get my ass kicked with pants on, anyway." Langly took the opportunity to squeeze and knead the ass pressed so firmly against him. "It's definitely a quality ass. I mean, Frohike's got entire servers full of ass, and maybe he's a little more of an expert than I am, but I've still seen an awful lot of ass, and this one is fantastic."  
  
"I've always thought it was a bit thin, but you're the expert, here," Reid teased, stretching back to see if he could pull Langly into a kiss. Possible, if a little awkward.  
  
Langly brought his hand lower, taking advantage of the angle, and dragged his fingers back from behind Reid's balls, teasing just the very edge of his hole. "You know how I keep saying you're a horrible tease?"  
  
"Do it. Touch me. Remind me how much I want you." There was a shade of suppressed panic behind Reid's eyes. "Tell me how you want me. I need to hear your voice."  
  
"I want to touch every part of you that you'll let me get my hands on," Langly purred, sliding a hand down the back of Reid's thigh, and in his next words, he took a page from Byers. "I want to know you want me. I want to feel you come all over me."  
  
As Langly's hand returned to softer skin, Reid tried to focus on the smell of the room -- Langly's laundry detergent, shampoo, sweat. He belonged here. He wanted to be here. He loved the man whose hands were all over him, whose kisses were warm against his shoulder. "I do want you, and I will. Just keep touching me."  
  
Reid stretched and writhed under the fingers that teased and stroked his skin -- a lingering caress, here, a quick pinch just there -- and every touch seemed focused on his pleasure. Which, to be fair, was the point of putting Langly over ahead of him. There would be no distractions, there would be no accidents. He'd have settled himself by the time Langly was ready, again, and he'd be more than willing, he'd be desirous. He filled his mind with the acts of overwhelming lust they'd shared, even as Langly filled his ears with promises of more of the same. He could do this. He could enjoy this. He could want this.  
  
At some point, Langly decided he was much more comfortable with this sort of thing when he could see Reid's face. Or at least, if he couldn't, when he was the one about to get banged like a cheap screen door. At least Reid still writhed against him, and there was no question those were sounds of pleasure, particularly when about a third of them were variants of 'yes' and 'more'. Still, he teased, as merciless in that as Reid had ever been with him, fingers moving in slow, slick caresses in places he knew would wring more and more desperate sounds from a body now tense with the anticipation of pleasure. His fingers lingered a little long and Reid shoved back onto them, clenching tight and rocking his hips, incoherent words falling from his lips.  
  
Chaz had said something about knowing why Langly liked it from behind, and Reid was starting to get the idea, as much as he still preferred Langly pressed against his chest, or at least in a position he could reach more easily. No, that wasn't what Chaz had said. It was the particular position, and the memory -- Chaz's memory -- of it lanced through him, darting along his nerves, the ensuing shiver squeezing a gasp from his lungs as he went tight around Langly's fingers.  
  
"Yeah?" Langly purred, his own flesh starting to take an interest in the proceedings, again. "Like that?"  
  
"I want you in me. I want your penis inside my body." Reid swallowed so hard his throat clicked, as he stepped back from himself, muffling the pleasure a little, but disconnecting his brain from his mouth, which went on without him. "I want you to put me on my knees and fuck me like a bitch in heat."  
  
"I don't usually fuck dogs." The words were out before Langly could catch them.  
  
Reid, still scrambling to keep up with himself, promptly made the situation worse. "Bullshit. I've watched you have your way with Chaz."  
  
Langly started several phrases, none of them quite making it out of his mouth past the long slow inhale, as his blinking eyes widened despite themselves. "I'm telling him you said that."  
  
By this point, Reid had grabbed a pillow and mashed it against his own face. He held it there for the space of a few breaths, long enough not to say anything more horrifying. "I am... that... sounded much worse than it was. It's ... part of him. It's part of how he thinks of himself, and I just... wow. I'm ... that was..." He paused. "And _you_ started it."  
  
"I'm just going to back slowly away from the subject and pretend none of this happened."  
  
"Take me with you. Can we go back to the appealing part of the conversation?"  
  
"The part where I flex my fingers just like this and you beg me to take you to pound town?"  
  
"I'm gonna be honest, 'pound town' may not be an improvement in terminology."  
  
"The hell it isn't," Langly huffed, finally realising that Reid was still trembling against him, though in a way he wasn't sure was good. "You trying to tank this because you're flipping out on me? Because that would be a pretty good reason."  
  
"I think 'trying' portrays me with a little more control than I think I have right now," Reid admitted, after a moment. "But, 'flipping out' is probably pretty accurate. In the process of flipping out, and would very much like that to stop."  
  
"Do you want me to stop? I can stop. We can just not do this."  
  
" _No._ " Reid twisted to look at Langly over his shoulder. "Touch me. Talk to me. Distract me. Remind me that I want this, and maybe the next time I start begging--"  
  
"Don't be a shit about it. Yeah, got that. Sorry. Reflex." Langly offered a pained look and buried his face against the back of Reid's shoulder.  
  
"I love you, and no small part of that is ... _this_. That was horrible and stupid, and somehow we're not fighting and neither of us is sleeping on the couch. Or with Byers."  
  
"Honestly, the couch would be safer. Byers would kick my ass over this."  
  
"Good thing we're not telling him." Reid stretched for another awkward kiss and pushed himself back against Langly's fingers. "Just in case you still had questions, I very much want to have sex with you."  
  
"Oh, good, because otherwise I was going to take the lube and retreat to the bathroom for my sanity." Langly nipped the back of Reid's shoulder and rubbed his thumb against the edge of Reid's hole, a bit of sensation just short of where his fingers were buried, and Reid writhed against him. "It's going to be a little more awkward, this time. My fingers are already dirty and I only have one hand, in this position. I don't want to wipe that anywhere I might want to lick before we get out of bed."  
  
"Then kiss me." Reid shifted slightly, trying to make kissing over his shoulder less awkward. "You might have noticed I'm really pretty turned on by kissing."  
  
"My bathroom wall definitely noticed." Langly leaned in for a quick kiss. "God, I wanted you. I still want you."  
  
"You have me."  
  
It was quicker, this time, despite the limited contact, as Reid's body remembered what it had intended to do, before his mind had gotten in the way. His hand grabbed at what of Langly he could reach, clutching and pulling as if they could be closer. Langly's kisses more breath than lips and tongue, as things progressed, his fingers almost enough, but never quite there.  
  
"I want this." Reid panted. "I want you. Show me how you like it."  
  
"You know how I like it. It's like you got a degree in getting me off, while I wasn't looking," Langly teased, pressing his lips against Reid's neck.  
  
"No, the _other_ way."  
  
"Oh... _Oh!_ You sure?"  
  
The look Reid returned could've melted glass.  
  
"Right." Langly slid his fingers out, slowly. "So, I'm getting the rest of that empirical evidence, am I? Just to make absolutely sure your ass is as hot as I think it is?"  
  
Reid groaned and rolled over, stretching as he lifted his hips. "I'll take your word for it, at this point, and that's not a suggestion to stop touching me."


	32. Chapter 32

This time it wasn't an accident, and Chaz knew the difference. This time, it was an offer, not an overwhelming rush. He'd closed that door, though. Closed it, locked it, stopped paying attention to what was happening on the other side. The mirror aimed at that space sat grey and nearly lifeless, reflecting just enough in the dim glass to reassure him that Reid was still there. But, Reid was very much still there, and scratching at the closed door like a cat with a dead bird.  
  
On the other hand, it was Reid, so what would be on offer if he opened that door was a lot more appealing than a dead bird.  
  
He'd said he wasn't going to interrupt. He'd said he'd stay on his side of the line, tonight. He was in the middle of a raid with his guild, and this was really probably not the time, but the healer covering him had a shitty ping time, and he was dead. Again. He didn't really need this one, and they were going to crash and burn, anyway, tonight...  
  
He reseated the wireless adapter, in the middle of a sentence, and closed his laptop, shoving it aside. ' _Oh, whoops, sorry, internet went out._ ' And nobody would believe him, but at the same time, nobody would say shit about it. He stretched across the bed in the dark and welcomed his lighter half.  
  
The chill washed over him, first. No, not quite a chill, a dissipation of heat, the lifting of sweat from the skin. Thumbs against his back, almost where -- yes, there! No visuals, though. Everything stayed black, with the occasional flash of sensory overload. He could feel Reid's lips moving, but the words were missing. Had he damaged the connection, when he closed the door? His concern and confusion overwhelmed them for a moment, but Reid batted it aside, and then Chaz understood.  
  
He only had access to the parts Reid had access to, in his current state. Reid had reached out not just to share this, but for help handling it. And who better than the evil twin he'd just worked out the details with? Chaz slid his own memory in, just under the surface -- Reid's body pressed against him, buried inside him, the perfect knowing between them that had replaced trust. He could feel Reid relaxing into it, remembering how that had felt from both sides, and he reached out for the parts of Reid he couldn't find, drawing on Reid's own pleasure to bridge the gaps the panic had carved through him. He didn't know the fear, and he didn't want to chase that -- not now.  
  
But, he could feel it. He could feel the fear, where it had sunk its talons into Reid, and he could feel that thick, dark temptation to chase it burbling up from the depths of his mind. He pushed it all aside, unhooking the barbs from Reid, feeling them recoil back into the depths of his mind -- not their mind, this was Reid's alone.  
  
As Reid regained his focus on the pleasure coursing through his body, the feeling of Langly's hands on his skin, Langly's breathless declarations of desire in his ears, Chaz could feel the same sensations return to him. He was right. He hadn't damaged the connection between them at all -- Reid had just dissociated badly enough to cut off his own perceptions. And considering that the majority of what he could feel from Reid was desire, that was definitely a reason to reach out. Reid's words were still blurry, as if he didn't want to know what he was saying, but Chaz could recognise the tone -- that wasn't just pleading, it was begging for _more_.  
  
He shrugged out of the shirt he'd thought he was wearing to bed, as he rolled over, trying to put himself in the same position Reid was in, to minimise the dissonance between them. Langly might've been a little less than he liked, but he felt so good in Reid. Under any other circumstances, that was probably actually a weird realisation, but Chaz couldn't be bothered by it long, one hand sliding over his own skin, adding to the pool of sensations he and Reid shared, and he let himself be moved by Reid's desires. There were more hands between them than were generally available to a person in situations like these, and between them, they had hands enough for every desire their minds could conceive.  
  
Langly's hands tightened on their hips, and Chaz felt Reid's chest clench. He fought until he could focus them on Langly's voice, on the reminder that it was Langly with them -- him. With him. With _them_ , his body insisted, clenching around the cock that wasn't inside him. This was good, this was so good, and whatever instructions Reid might be giving that neither of them could hear just made it better. He was sure it was something Reid said, from Langly's response.  
  
Those hands caressed their back, again, and Chaz felt his mind hiccup when they didn't hit his scars. He drowned the envy in a sparkling rush of warmth as he pinched his own nipple, remembering the feel of teeth on his skin. Reid's hand wrapped around their cock, a caress far less gentle than one might expect, but he knew what he wanted, he knew how to get it, and he meant to take Chaz with him. Langly's thumbs pressed in between their hips, missing the mark a few times as Reid shivered and writhed, but when they caught where they'd been aimed, Chaz could feel it like lightning against his tongue. ~~The taste of ozone and wet air, a kiss he couldn't forget...~~  
  
They arched, hungry anticipation racing along their nerves, the tension increasing like their muscles expected to bend bone. They were so close to the edge, that last pleasure like the wind at the top of a drop, an ice cold temptation to step off and embrace what came next. Which would be both of them, Chaz had no doubt.  
  
He was shocked at the sound of his own voice, as they slipped off that edge, and he realised Reid had finally reconnected with his own mouth. With both of their mouths, apparently, because Chaz had so curiously wrapped himself in that connection, trying to find the fault in the line. "Oh, Langly, _please_ \-- Please just fuck me-- Yes-- just-- more-- There! _Yes_!"  
  
As a howl of raw lust tore out of his throat, Chaz thought, dimly, that this might have been the only time in his life he'd ever come that loudly, and he was absolutely sure Hafs was going to kill him for it, later.

* * *

Langly ran his hands down Reid's sides, gently, unsure if the sudden trembling was a good sign. "You all right?"  
  
"You should get off me." Reid sounded dizzy, distant. "I want you where I can hold you."  
  
"Out," Langly warned, pulling back, slowly. Somehow, he managed to get the ring off, tossing it toward the nightstand, before he stretched out beside Reid. "Seriously, you okay?"  
  
"I don't know. Probably?" Reid tried to kick the blanket up to where he could reach it, but Langly finally sat up and pulled it over them. "That felt incredible, but I always enjoy having sex with you, so I'm not sure that's a reasonable measure."  
  
"Okay, so... we know it wasn't _bad_ , at least." Langly tucked Reid's hair back with the cleaner of his hands. "Not that I thought it was bad with all the noise you were making, but holy shit, I don't think I've ever heard you use words like that. Kind of scared the hell out of me."  
  
Reid offered an apologetic smile. "I can't remember. I couldn't hear myself. But, I could hear you, and that's what mattered."  
  
"You know, I'm starting to wonder if this was a good idea. You couldn't _hear_ yourself? If the bathroom door wasn't closed _Byers_ would've be able to hear you. You don't _remember_? That just... doesn't sound like the aftermath of a good time."  
  
"That was the hard part. It gets easier, from here." Reid moved down and curled up under Langly's chin. "I don't like people behind me. I really don't like people touching me when I can't see them. I mean, I don't really like people touching me, anyway. Behind me is just the worst of a bad thing. But, I love you, and I like it when you touch me. And I want to get to where I can stop reading you as a threat, just because you have your hands on me and I can't look at you."  
  
"Which is why you picked that position. It's almost impossible to get a good look, like that."  
  
"No, actually, I picked that position because you like it so much, and I wanted to start with the best possible experience."  
  
"I love you. You're a brilliant god damn idiot, and I love you." Langly wrapped himself around Reid like he might never let go.  
  
Reid pinched him. "Can't breathe."  
  
Langly shifted a bit. "Sorry."

* * *

By the time Chaz made it to work, which was early, even for him, Reid was already sitting on the corner of his desk, holding a large bag of Halloween candy and looking guilty.  
  
"I am so sorry about last night. I know this doesn't make up for it, but I'm hoping it'll buy me ten minutes to finish apologising." He held out the bag.  
  
"I'm not having this conversation right here, because I don't know who's listening," Chaz decided, accepting the bag of candy and cramming as much as would fit into his pockets, before shutting the rest in a drawer. "Adjourn to the bathroom, which I'm sure isn't bugged, because nobody wants to go through those reels?"  
  
"You'd be surprised." Reid raised his eyebrows as he stood, following Chaz. "There were whole RICO investigations that hinged on bathroom tapes."  
  
"Well, I know the elevator's a bad idea." Chaz closed his eyes, considering the building. "Let's live dangerously. I'll pick the lock on Falkner's office. If it's bugged, it's Hafs. And more to the point, it's not Duke."  
  
Reid had the lockpicks out before Chaz opened his eyes, and it didn't take them long to get past the door.  
  
"For the record, she knows I can do this," Chaz admitted, closing the door behind them. "Now... _what_?"  
  
"I shouldn't have dropped that on you." Reid's eyes were on his belt, where he replaced the lockpicks. "I temporarily lost my mind and dragged you into--"  
  
"Stop." Chaz held up both hands, a bite-size Milky Way wrapper in one, and took a moment to lick the caramel out of his teeth before he went on. "First, there was no 'drag'. You were a little insistent, but I opened that door, and I could've closed it. And I didn't, because I was interested. And also because that was incredibly hot and definitely beat the hell out of any plans I might have had to jerk off before I went to sleep, but mostly because I was intrigued."  
  
"There's a lot I don't remember." Reid shook his head, not looking at Chaz. "And I know I remember things that weren't there."  
  
"I'm not surprised. You were already dissociating by the time I got there. Took me a minute to figure out what that was, too. Really disconcerting -- I thought I broke something." Another chocolate disappeared into Chaz's mouth, the wrapper going back into a pocket.  
  
"Like I said, I'm sorry I--"  
  
"Spencer, no. I don't--" Chaz's eyes suddenly widened. "You said _what_? Okay, yes, _that_ you can apologise for! Dog." He huffed. "Asshole. _Coyote_ , not dog. Trickster god, not man's best friend."  
  
"Probably one of my best friends." Reid shrugged, trying to change the subject. "But, you said you didn't want to be involved, and I brought that to you anyway, and that's what I'm sorry about."  
  
"I very much wanted to be involved. I just didn't ... We both know this isn't how relationships work. What you have with him, what he has with me? That's somewhere on the spectrum of relatively normal. What you and I have... 'evil twins' doesn't even scratch the surface. I wanted to make sure it was still possible to leave myself out of what went on between the two of you, to give you the privacy you deserve. Because if it wasn't, I'd have to make some serious adjustments, and I want to know that now, before it gets serious. And you looked like you needed the privacy, last night. You looked like you needed to know you were safe in your own head, so I stayed on my side of the room." Chaz realised he'd opened a Snickers when he bit into it and Reid gagged. He grabbed a tissue from Falkner's desk and spit into it, still unwilling to swallow that taste, even more than he was unwilling to waste food. He pointed at Reid. "That. That is exactly what I'm trying to prevent. But, you reached out, and I tested the boundary I'd drawn. And it held. And I really need to revisit making sure it holds from this side, because you don't need the nausea every time I smell peanut butter. I don't need it either, but at least I'm in the room with it."  
  
"So, what, it's your own fault because you walked into it?" Reid scoffed. "I appreciate the rest of what you're saying, that the increased distance hasn't made a constant high level of detail unavoidable, and I'm grateful for that, as well as for your ... willingness, I suppose, to give me privacy -- at this point, I can't see it as anything else. The power is yours, not mine."  
  
"And yet, you deflect me, easily."  
  
"Because you let me."  
  
Chaz made an uncertain sound, checking the wrapper before he put the next candy into his mouth. "I think exposure is making you stronger."  
  
"You think I'm going to convert."  
  
"Strangely, no. I don't. If you were going to, there were plenty of opportunities. If I were going to nail it down, you probably would have converted when we went to bring Frank back. You've been exposed to both of us almost non-stop for months -- and I've been using the Anomaly on you, essentially, that whole time. You've got exposure and multiple traumatic events, in the last ... not even a year, and I'm absolutely sure you've been exposed before. You don't spend that long in our line of work without hitting it somewhere, even if it's not obvious at the time. So, that's really not what I'm worried about. I think you're turning into something else, something we haven't seen because we haven't been looking for it, and honestly, I'm not going to say a word about it to anyone else. But, I think your resistance is getting stronger over time. I think, in a few months, it's not going to be about me 'letting' you deflect."  
  
"One way to find out." Reid sighed and patted his pockets, before realising he wasn't sure what he was looking for. "And you're still dodging the point."  
  
"No, I'm not. You were having wild kinky sex, and you needed me -- the other person you have wild kinky sex with -- to do the mental equivalent of getting the handcuff key that fell behind the dresser. It's not really that big of a deal. If it was less obviously traumatic for you, I'd probably make jokes about it, but it didn't feel like that kind of accident."  
  
"I'm trying to fix something."  
  
"I know. And I know there's a reason you want to fix it with Frank, just like there's a reason I wanted to fix it with you. And there's a reason I'm not asking. If you want me to know, you'll tell me."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
"Thank _you_ , because I haven't said that, yet. I mean that. That was definitely a better end to my evening than I'd been planning, even if it was a little work to get there." Chaz tossed a pointlessly small Twix into his mouth and reached for Reid, before letting his hand drop. Even if it was easily three hours before anyone else would get there, this was still work, and there was no touching at work.  
  
Reid caught the hand on the way down, just holding on to Chaz's fingers for a moment.  
  
"I really need a cup of coffee." Chaz covered his mouth with his other hand, eyes squinting as they darted to the door. "Everything still tastes like peanuts."


	33. Chapter 33

"Hey, just calling to let you know the construction starts in a couple of hours. Cedric really wants the job for the rest of the windows, so his crew's going to be out today to do the living room. The problem is they're starting late, so they're working late, and the place is probably still going to be trashed when you get home. I'll call for takeout. I absolutely promise to feed you." Langly finally stopped talking as he looped the feed on a traffic camera and dodged a car door. "Hey, pay attention to traffic, asshole!"  
  
"Where... are you?" Reid asked, noticing that Langly's voice had the sound it did when he was encrypting his own communications.  
  
"About ten minutes from your place in this stupid goddamn traffic. I could walk faster." Another string of expletives followed. "I had to go pick up some tarps and shit, so I could protect your furniture."  
  
" _You?_ You went into a store? You?" Reid looked shocked enough that Alvez started paying attention.  
  
"Why didn't I just have it sent? Because I was hoping if I stopped at Home Depot, the goddamn traffic would let up. But, no. Now, it's worse." Honking and swearing ensued. "I hate this city. And I hate this city even more between seven and nine in the morning."  
  
"This is why public transit exists," Reid teased.  
  
"Yeah, well, maybe when I return to being a real person without a fucking pet project of the Department of Defence trying to kill me, I'll consider it. But, probably not. It's a little circuitous."  
  
"Anyway, my apartment. How bad is this going to be?"  
  
"Ehh. I'm going to move as much as I can into the bedroom, because you never use the bedroom anyway, and if your mom shows up in the next two days, we've got bigger problems than getting the sofa out of the way of the bed. The sofa, the chairs, probably the table behind the sofa. I think I can just lean the coffee table on the wall next to the bathroom, duct tape some tarps across the bookcases. Your desk might wind up boxed in with the stereo cabinet, but like... one night. I swear I'll put everything back where I found it, as soon as the windows are in. You'll... probably be home before that happens."  
  
"One night of mayhem, for a beautiful new home that I already live in? I think I can handle that. Just... please don't let anything get broken."  
  
"You lost enough to the crazy midget. I'm not going to break anything. If we haven't broken something, yet, together, there is no way I'm going to break something by myself."  
  
"Thank you. I'll see you when I'm done, here."  
  
"I'll be waiting."  
  
The call disconnected with that weird sound that confirmed Langly was burning breakfast to make his calls, instead of battery life, and Reid slipped the phone back into his pocket and rubbed his face, tiredly. This would be fine. It would be handled immediately. He'd be in hell for two days, and then he'd be safe again. And warm, if Langly was right about the windows and the heat.  
  
"Hot date you're not looking forward to?" Alvez teased, watching Reid adjust his expectations for the day. "You could always give her my number, instead."  
  
"Renovations on my apartment. In light of recent events, the new management has elected to replace all the windows, starting with mine. Frank's on his way over to make sure my furniture's going to survive." Reid offered an awkward smile.  
  
"Whoa, whoa, what's this?" Rossi appeared like a dog drawn by the smell of chicken, except the temptation was office gossip, a stack of file folders still clutched in one hand. "You've got a relationship that has progressed to the point where he has your keys, and you didn't tell us?"  
  
"Of course he doesn't have my keys." Reid looked up, amused.  
  
Alvez looked baffled. "Then how's he going to take care of your furniture, if he can't get in?"  
  
"I didn't say he couldn't get in, I said he didn't have _my keys_. Or a copy of them. As he tells me, he doesn't open my door, because he doesn't want to get shot, not because he can't." Reid smiled innocently. "And now he gets to prove the point."  
  
"You are a cruel man, Spencer Reid." Alvez whistled and laughed.  
  
"I am not! This wasn't supposed to happen until maybe Thursday, at the earliest! We haven't had time to worry about the keys or the furniture, yet! I've been here since five-thirty this morning!"  
  
"Everything all right?" Rossi asked, sudden concern in his voice.  
  
"I'm being stalked by a tabloid photographer, and last night we had him arrested as a peeping tom, because he was taking photos through my windows. So, yeah, everything you _meant_ is fine, but there are a few things that are absolutely not fine, right now. It's being handled. It's an offence against a federal agent, but it's not a federal crime. It's going to _be_ one if we can prove what's actually happening. Villette's working on that, because I'm not allowed to touch a case where I'm the victim." Reid pressed his palms into his eyes and dragged his hands down his face, giving a few blinks before he tried for more words. "I keep telling myself that any year in which I'm not in prison and haven't been tortured is a good year, but I'm just having a little trouble believing it right this minute."  
  
"I'd say you should take a very long lunch, but--"  
  
"The office is the safest place for me, right now? Yeah. Got that far." Reid leaned back in his chair, staring blankly at the ceiling. "Maybe I'll see if I can bribe Villette into showing me what he's got, so far. I could probably trade a good chicken tikka masala for a quick look at his data."  
  
"That's probably a good idea, as long as you're not the one eating the tikka masala." Rossi nodded slowly.  
  
"I'll have you know that was a paneer tikka masala, and it wasn't very good." Reid reached for his coffee.  
  
"Cream sauce," Rossi said, slowly.  
  
"Black coffee." Reid smiled sharply over the top of the cup. "Besides, it's _barely_ a cream sauce. It's not like it's an alfredo."  
  
Rossi turned to Alvez. "You're going to want to use the bathroom downstairs, for the rest of the day."  
  
"You have watched me eat pizza and be _fine_ , Rossi."  
  
"I've also watched you put real cream in your coffee and projectile vomit four times in an hour."  
  
"That's only because you didn't see the rest of what I ate, that day," Reid argued. "It's not what, it's _how much_."  
  
"This is why you don't have relationships that last, man," Alvez teased, laughing, and then tried to get the conversation back onto safer ground as he caught the way Rossi's eyebrows shot up and Reid's eyes focused on him, uncannily still. "I mean, that Frank must be a pretty great guy, if he'll still share a bathroom with you."  
  
"Frank almost broke his arm in an easily-avoidable toilet accident, last week. I'm not sure he has room to talk." Reid still did not look appeased.  
  
"It's interesting you always call him by name," Rossi observed, carefully. "Even to people who haven't met him."  
  
"What else am I going to call him?"  
  
"Your boyfriend?"  
  
"You know what? First of all, I'm pretty sure you haven't said this to JJ. She talks about Will the same way. And it's _polite_." Reid tipped his chair back to look directly up at Rossi without craning his neck. "He's not just a piece in the puzzle, to be defined as his relationship to me. Unlike most of our victims, I'm still alive. There's no reason to define the world in terms of its relationship to me, no matter who I'm talking to, except in specific situations in which those relationships are going to alter the discussion in a way I think it needs to be changed. His name preserves his identity, in the conversation, as a separate person with his own life and his own skills. And third, when have you ever heard me refer to _any_ person I was dating as something other than their name?"  
  
"Never, because you don't talk about the people you're dating," Rossi pointed out. "But, your family seems exempt from the second point."  
  
A thin smile tugged the corners of Reid's mouth. "Of course they are. You don't need to know them or respect them outside their relationship to me. There are very few instances in which you'd be considering them at all, and I find it more appropriate to leave them ill-defined and forgettable. I don't really talk _to_ them, either, except for my mother, and she, too, is better left ill-defined, I find. Besides, what person calls their mother by name?" He tipped his head ever so slightly. "Come on, Rossi. I work here. You've known me how long? I'm very deliberate in my use of the language."  
  
"And it's interesting that you come back to the point of defining identity, particularly in the case of Frank..."  
  
"Don't say it. I know where you're going with that."  
  
Alvez watched them like a cat watches birds on the other side of a window.  
  
Reid went on. "You're going to bring out Narcisse's accusation that he's actually Richard Langly, and I counter with this: Langly is dead. If he were Langly, that would mean a person or persons, most likely working for the Bureau, did a very good job making him disappear. Why do I think we did it, if it happened? Because he was a contractor, at best, and at least an informant. Which means that if -- _if_ \-- he were this person he looks a bit like, at the right angles, and whose fingerprints don't match his, he'd be in something like Bureau-implemented Witness Protection, to conceal his continued existence from people who would likely finish the job, if they found out he wasn't dead. Therefore every suggestion that he _is_ Richard Langly is basically painting a target on his back, and by extension, _mine_."  
  
He took a deep breath. "Please don't. I'm dating a man named Frank Arroway, and his relationship, if any, to Richard Langly only matters when someone is trying to kill us over it. It's been fifteen years, and the truth of this particular matter is never going to have any bearing on anything to come, but the rumours surrounding it may get people killed. And there's really not a way to prove he isn't Langly any more than he has. He has records that support his identity, and there are no matches with this information to the records, what few there are, of Langly from before his death."  
  
Rossi nodded, thoughtfully. "You've given this a lot of thought."  
  
"A woman tried to kill me in my living room, because she believed it. It's been on my mind."  
  
"And yet, you don't say you believe him. You say the truth doesn't matter, and you're still willing to pursue a relationship with a man who may be lying about his identity."  
  
"Rossi, _honestly_ , would you stop dating a woman because you thought she _might_ be in Witness Protection?"  
  
Rossi smiled knowingly. "No, I would not. And I'd do my best to help her be less obvious."  
  
"Then don't pick at this. Whether or not it's true, Langly wasn't hidden from _Narcisse_."  
  
"And wouldn't you rather know what you're up against?"  
  
"I _do_ have some idea, but I'm not in a position to discuss it. Hazard of the job." And Reid knew he'd just told Rossi he meant the Fitzgerald investigation -- the one thing he was working on that was _that_ kind of classified.

* * *

Langly sat curled up in the chair, laptop open, as he went through the records around Narcisse, Frain, and Bollinger again. There had to be something they'd missed, something they hadn't followed. Between his own obsessively thorough datamining and what Villette had done to make the data human-readable, the two of them could find any piece of information about Frain and Bollinger in seconds, regardless of how trivial. They'd gotten into the habits of people 'with nothing to hide', and as a result, almost every aspect of their lives was readily available to someone with the right skills and motivation. Narcisse, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. There was almost nowhere to start with her. She'd taken more care to destroy her past than he had, because she wouldn't raise any flags doing it -- Richard Langly existed in paper files in at least one FBI archival facility, and enough people remembered the name that it would be a conspicuous absence. He'd separated himself from the identity, but she'd destroyed everything that had come before. He was down to human-assisted facial recognition on forty-something years of images, nationwide. Whatever she'd managed to destroy, she'd have avoided conspicuous absence, same as he had. Surveillance video and group photos were the absolute worst place to start, but they were all he had left. He just needed a crack -- he just needed to figure out where to start digging deeper. Somebody, somewhere, probably scanned her school photos and posted them to social media. He just had to find them and hope they looked enough like the digital regressions to pop.  
  
Beside him, the room gaped open to the air, past the bookcases. Cedric's team had torn out the drywall under the windows to mount the batteries for the solar system, and the old window frames were gone, only half the new ones in. They'd come prepared with floodlights, expecting to work through the night, if necessary. For what Langly and Byers paid them, he wasn't surprised. Cedric was usually willing to get a little flexible with the hours for the right price, and his team would be people equally willing to work under these conditions. Cedric always knew who to call for the weird ones. Still, this was going to be a little longer than anticipated, and just maybe it wasn't something Reid should come home to.  
  
Langly rolled his shoulders and shifted position, making a call.  
  
"Hey, gorgeous. You still at work?"  
  
"Why? What went wrong? Is my couch okay? What did you do to my bookshelf?"  
  
Langly could hear a muffled laugh in the background. "Nothing's wrong. It's just taking a little longer than we thought. Everything's fine, Cedric's just making sure it _stays_ that way. I'm calling to suggest you might want to go home with Villette for a few hours. You don't want to see this. I can hear you hyperventilating already. I'll call you when I move the couch back."  
  
A muffled conversation ensued, in which Langly had to pay attention to distinguish the voices -- together, they'd begun to sound more and more alike, the subtle regional accent stronger even when they were apart. It would be all too easy to believe they were actual brothers, if he didn't know better -- just enough in common to suggest they took after opposite parents. He was sure that would be useful, somewhere. Outside of porn. Somewhere _outside of porn_.  
  
"Agent Villette suggests he's been sufficiently bribed for the day to put up with me for a few more hours. He's threatening to take me dancing, though, and I may have to do something drastic."  
  
"Hey, did you show him those pictures Penny took? I'd want to take you dancing after that. I mean. If dancing was a thing I did. Which it's not. Rhythm games are not dancing." Langly grimaced awkwardly at the thought and almost missed the blip in the network. Half his attention went to tracking it down, as Reid continued to protest that dancing was not a thing he did, except under duress. He managed a stiff laugh. "Hey, hand me to Villette? We'll see if I can talk him out of it."  
  
In the corner of one of the new window frames, an almost-invisible flat black mechanical leg extended into the room, tapping to verify the surface, before the spider-thing clambered the rest of the way into the room. It was smaller than the long joint of Langly's thumb, legs included, and in the construction it would've gone unnoticed, had Langly not been sweeping local network traffic in the background, watching for trouble. Exactly this kind of trouble.  
  
"Villette? Make sure he stays with you. We have a situation here. I need you to do two things for me: get Hafs and tell Penny I'll be splicing something in to her. Tell Reid whatever you have to, but don't tell him something's wrong, here. It's... not really wrong, I just don't want this thing to see him, if I can help it. And tell Hafs to be ready to shoot to kill, because I don't know what's outside the door, but in here... I hope I'm looking at a spy drone, but I have a feeling I'm not that lucky."  
  
"Oh, so because you don't dance, I shouldn't take your boyfriend dancing? What are you afraid he's going to think I'm more fun? There's a quick fix for that called 'actually spending time with me'," Chaz teased. "But, yeah, I'll tell Penny and Hafs you're patching them in on the search for Narcisse."  
  
"Thanks. Not enough bandwidth. Kiss him for me. I gotta deal with this." As Langly dropped the line, he could hear Reid shouting 'Gross!' "Hey, Cedric? Swing one of those lights down and tell me if you see anyone in the alley. We've had some problems."


	34. Chapter 34

"You should know," Chaz said, leaning against the front door as he locked it behind them, "that I've been instructed to keep you very distracted, this evening."  
  
"You are not getting me into a nightclub. All other objections aside, it's a Tuesday, and we both have to work in the morning." Reid sounded entirely unconcerned about the integrity of his evening.  
  
"You say this like I don't go clubbing on work nights on a regular basis," Chaz teased, shrugging as he stepped away from the door. "But, no. It's the night before Halloween, and I would _never_. Not with you. Me? Oh, I'd happily suffer for it, if I knew a club that did Tuesdays. You... I'm not dragging you out into a room full of sweaty, thirsty weirdoes like myself on the busiest night of the year. No, if I'm going to talk you into it, it's going to be a quieter night, and with as many people you know as possible for a buffer."  
  
"So, what were you actually going to distract me with? Dinner and...?"  
  
"I love how you just assume food. I mean, you're right, but..." Chaz laughed and ducked into the kitchen, still talking. "I was thinking maybe we'd do a little dancing, right here. No nightclub needed. I've heard rumours you're pretty good at it."  
  
"I wouldn't know. It's really not something I do." Reid leaned in the kitchen doorway, watching Chaz rearrange the fridge, making decisions about which of the weekend's casseroles would be tonight's dinner.  
  
"Wow. I can _hear you_ digging your heels in." Chaz didn't need to look to feel the look on Reid's face, as he set the heat on both ovens and tossed another dish into the microwave, not turning it on. "What did I step in, here?"  
  
"I'm told that I dance. I've only ever gotten that drunk ... three times in my life? Don't remember most of it. Don't really want to!" Reid cleared his throat. "Apparently, the last time, I attracted a lot of attention, in the I probably would have walked -- stumbled -- out with a pocket full of phone numbers from visually appealing women, but I'm pretty sure I flushed them down the toilet after loudly announcing I had a boyfriend. Which I didn't."  
  
Chaz stayed facing the stove so Reid wouldn't see the look on his face, as he struggled not to laugh. "I keep forgetting you take that so much less well than I do, and I'm not exactly good at it. But, I also don't get more than one at a time. Maybe. In a year. But, I get the impression you were at the kind of club where that happens."  
  
Reid blinked and stared into the space between his eyelashes and the end of his nose as he filtered through what he could remember from the first half of that night and compared it to what he knew of Chaz's taste in music. "You're probably right. Completely different demographic. I still don't dance."  
  
"This is the part where Frank would make a joke about the horizontal tango, but I'm just gonna let that one go."  
  
"I appreciate that. How much time do we have?"  
  
"Half an hour? Why, what are you thinking?"  
  
"I'm thinking, speaking of things I don't do, that I had something planned for your birthday."  
  
"Why does that not sound like the most reassuring thing I've heard, today?" Chaz finally turned around, resisting the urge to reach out for the wisps of that thought.  
  
"Because you know I'm about to do something I've never done before, and you can smell fear?" Reid laughed and looked away.  
  
"Yeah, I'm ... much more concerned than enthusiastic right now," Chaz admitted, holding out a hand, relieved when Reid took it and drew him closer.  
  
"I've decided I'm done with the guilt over the handful of sexual acts I've been willing to accept from you, but not to return. And I've realised that I've been sitting on a potential solution to my reluctance in at least one regard for the entire time I've known you. Literally sitting on it, actually. I keep them under the couch." Reid produced a single unlubricated condom, holding it up between two fingers, as he filled his mind with memories of the weight of his own erection against their collective tongue.  
  
Chaz leaned back and pushed another button on the oven, so it would go to warm, instead of off, when it was done. Turning back, he tucked Reid's hair back with his free hand and breathed the next words right against Reid's ear. "I want you. But, only if you're sure."  
  
"I'm sure enough," Reid decided, tipping his head to get Chaz's hair out of his face. "I want you in my mouth."  
  
Chaz didn't have words for the things those words did to his insides. Or maybe he had words, but he couldn't seem to put them together in a way he _liked_. A hollow hunger, an insistent desire, a demand for satisfaction that echoed through his bones. He wanted, but he could feel the way the edges of the desire turned sticky and foul like hot tar, and he knew it didn't matter if that was him or the Anomaly. It was easier to deal with, if harder to live with, if he just accepted it as part of himself. The part of himself he was going to kick sharply in both shins.  
  
"Spencer, I'm... I know this isn't likely, because it's pretty hard to screw up when you know what someone else wants just as fast as they do, but I'm going to say it anyway, because I'll feel a lot better about it, if I do." He put his hands on Reid's shoulders and stepped back just far enough for their eyes to meet. "If I manage to do anything you don't like, _bite me_. Do not be polite about it."  
  
"I'm sure it's not going to come to--"  
  
"You cannot imagine how serious I am."  
  
"Something's wrong, isn't it." Reid couldn't find what Chaz was holding back from him. That was the thing -- as well as he could divert inspections of his own thoughts, Chaz could just stop sharing.  
  
"No? Not..." Chaz sighed and shoved a hand through his hair. "I'm trying to make sure we get through this, if something _does_ go wrong. If the Anomaly goes for you, it'll take me as a sacrifice, and I can't think of anything it would get distracted by faster than teeth. I mean, I'm going to be pretty distracted too, but I'll get over it. It just wants something to suffer."  
  
"Hey, I'm good at this, remember? Well, the Anomaly part..." One corner of Reid's mouth followed his eyebrow up. "If I promise to fend it off with my teeth, which I still think is a bad idea, do you want to find out if I'm any good at the rest?"  
  
"Of course you're good at it. You already remember how," Chaz teased, changing the angle on the mirror, to catch the central gleam of his own nearly overpowering desire, but not the blackened, curling edges. "Do I want you to demonstrate, anyway? No, I'm just breathing your air for my health. Still, maybe not in the kitchen?"  
  
"Take it upstairs?"  
  
"Hafs isn't going to be home for _hours_..." Or, more to the point, Chaz expected Langly would call before Hafs showed up.  
  
"You have something right next to an exhibitionist streak, don't you? You and Frank, both." Reid rolled his eyes and let Chaz lead him toward, surprisingly, the stairs.  
  
"Changed my mind. I definitely want to be lying down for this."  
  
"Do I ask?"  
  
"We're about the same height. Double the fun is great, but we can do better."  
  
"This is exactly how you get bit by _accident_ , I just want you to know."

* * *

"Yeah, I'm about to hand you the firmware from something. I don't know what it is, but I'm looking at it. I'd give you an electrical diagram, but I don't want to get that close to this thing. I'd take it apart, myself, but I can't do that and keep it jammed up at the same time, so if you can figure out how this thing works and what it's capable of, I'm going to try to figure out where it's taking orders from." Langly was sweating and shaking, but he didn't dare try to get up. Hafidha would be there soon, and the door was unlocked because Cedric's crew had been in and out all afternoon, so she could let herself in. "Get Fitz to help if you need it, but I have to go. I can't handle this much bandwidth."  
  
"Frank, if you die, I'm going to be very angry. I'll get Fitz and catch you in text."  
  
Langly took a long, shaky breath as Garcia hung up. He had to let the thing move a little, every few minutes, or the operators would assume it had completely malfunctioned and abandon it. Right now, he'd kept it somewhere around moderately glitchy, but still functional, by blocking most of the network traffic and mangling the rest. The thing was looking right at him, he was pretty sure, but it couldn't see him, as long as he kept insisting the room... oh, shit. The images he'd written were the room as it usually looked, not with all the shit moved and covered. Still, he'd intercepted it before it had gotten a look at this side, so maybe it'd just come off as some of the room being trashed, as opposed to the far more accurate all of the room being trashed. Either way the operators were probably still trying to place the bug and get an accurate count of people and who they were. The camera signals were easy for him, because half of what he did was screwing with surveillance, but the motion commands still confused him. Of course, that might've been because the thing was between him and the equipment-blocked kitchen door, and he hadn't eaten since lunch.

* * *

Reid nipped Chaz's thigh, as he felt the brush of lips and breath against his skin. "Let me get used to it, before you start distracting me. I don't want to make a mistake and choke us both."  
  
"Pretty sure I'm paying enough attention for both of us," Chaz volunteered, licking at the very tip of Reid's cock.  
  
Reid had kept his hips high, holding himself just out of Chaz's reach, as he tried to figure out how bad the latex would taste and how much he could fit in his mouth before he gagged, and under him, Chaz was making very few sounds that weren't appreciative, most of them aimed at getting him to lower his hips. Between them, the seemingly inseparable reflection of their lusts caught and swirled, flickering into incomprehensibility and back, but never losing the faintest shred of immediacy.  
  
Bringing his head down, but not his hips, Reid let Chaz's memories wash over him, lead him, as he licked and kissed his way down, rubbing his cheek against the whole length, before taking just the head into his mouth, swallowing for the seal, and teasing mercilessly with his tongue, as Chaz writhed under him. How did he want this to feel? Reid wondered if he shouldn't have bought condoms for this purpose -- something thinner, maybe. As much as these didn't bother him, there was a certain loss of detail he regretted, compared to his memories. On the other hand, perhaps Chaz had the right idea. They could always fill in the blanks in the combined experience. With a long, low purr, he brought himself into Chaz's reach, the difference in sensation sparking and leaping along his nerves.  
  
There was a brief pause as Chaz shoved aside his own hysterical laughter and Reid's stark embarrassment, after Reid's balls hit him in the eye. That was the downside to this, he figured, but it was absolutely worth the moment's awkwardness to experience this exactly the way it was never intended to be done. Reid's mouth on him, Reid's pleasure gliding along his bones like ghosts of light. Their mouth open, full of flesh and sound, the vibrations ringing through them, the joy of knowing, wanting, and already having. This would probably not last much longer, but Chaz wished he could hold onto it forever.

* * *

Hafidha slipped into the apartment, gun drawn, and Cedric looked like he might do something about it. Langly dizzily held up a hand, and the spider staggered a few steps further into the room, as his control slipped ever so slightly.  
  
"She's with me." He rolled his head toward Hafidha, sweat-soaked hair clinging to his face and the back of the chair. "Pick this up for me?"  
  
Hafidha took in the situation in an instant, holstered her gun, and crossed the room, already following Langly's markers. She pulled a ziploc bag of assorted candy bars out of her overstuffed laptop bag and dropped them in his lap. "Eat before you die, and tell me what I'm -- oh... Aren't _you_ precious..."  
  
Langly kept his hold on the spider alongside her, tearing into some kind of chocolate and caramel something he could barely taste, while Hafidha got a feel for the thing. "I can't find the other end of the connection."  
  
"Of course you can't. I'm surprised you can find your fingers, honey. Nice loop, though! I'll take that off your hands." Hafidha picked up the view Langly had been feeding the camera. "And I'm just going to let this thing show me where it thinks it's going."  
  
"Slowly," Langly admonished, with his mouth full. "I've been glitching it. If it comes back too fast..."  
  
Hafidha nodded, tablet in one hand to keep the workmen from noticing her talents, just as Langly's laptop still sat open on his lap. "What the _hell_ is the connection doing?"  
  
"Okay, see, it's not just me." Langly made a face, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth from the sugar. "I ran out of coffee an hour ago."  
  
"You're lucky I'm used to Chaz and his complete inability to keep himself fed when he starts working too hard." Hafidha snorted and produced a protein drink from somewhere else in her bag, dropping it into Langly's lap. "But, you also better be buying me dinner."  
  
"As soon as it's safe to bring someone we don't know to the door." Langly rinsed his mouth out with the taste of artificial strawberry. "You catch anything outside? I've had the crew checking for obvious surveillance, like Bollinger, but there's nothing standing around out there, nothing large enough to be a surveillance post that we didn't put there."  
  
"You know what the neighbourhood looks like a lot better than I do. You'd see something out of place faster than I would, but there's nothing glaring. Something like this, though?" Hafidha gestured at the spider with her tablet, as it took another few stumbling steps, legs moving out of time. "This isn't going to be the usual. This is somebody with a lot of money and a decent amount of field experience."  
  
Langly eyed the pile of wrappers accumulating next to his hip. "New plan. One of us holds it, the other one chases the signal back."  
  
"Give me the signal. You already fucked that up."  
  
"I did not fuck it up. I just didn't have the energy to do both, and I thought maybe keeping it across the room was more important!" Langly blinked at the screen in his lap. "Yeah, Penny just got back to me about the loops I was too screwed up to identify. Across the room is where we want it. I might like it better across the street. The only reason it's that big is to fit the injectors."  
  
"Somebody wants you dead or unconscious," Hafidha observed, releasing functions to Langly, as he started to take her place again. He still looked like shit, though, but she got it. This was personal, and he was going to burn himself to the ground chasing it, if she didn't help. Maybe even if she did. Maybe he _was_ more like Chaz than he was like her -- much more a danger to himself than to anyone else.  
  
"Because I'm so fucking surprised." Langly rolled his eyes and then blinked. "No, not me, _Reid_."

* * *

Reid writhed and shuddered, the hands on his hips bracing him so Chaz wouldn't choke when he arched. They weren't quite synchronous, like this, which was interesting -- for all that they'd played with being each other's reflections, their actual desires were ever so slightly different, as usual, and it was much more obvious in this position, shared like this. And, as usual, that didn't detract from the experience in any way, but added to it, every possible gap in the pleasure filled in by the other's sensations.  
  
Beneath him, Chaz stretched, legs tense, hands gripping tighter, but offering Reid the option to tip them over or let the moment pass, again. They were so close -- close to the edge, close to each other, and Chaz could feel that sharp twinge that always rounded Reid's eyes just before the orgasm was inevitable. The decision had been made, and Chaz let it drag him down, swallowing again and again, as Reid took him deep enough to gag, borrowed his composure, and pushed down again.   
  
An eternity of blinding pleasure later, Reid pulled back, deeply satisfied, but also horrified at the volume of thick, sticky spit he'd left on Chaz and the bed. He tried to apologise, but couldn't get words out.  
  
The sound of Chaz clearing his throat and coughing came from the other end of the bed. "No, you don't get to apologise. Oh, no, you drooled all over my crotch in the middle of an act that's pretty much about drooling all over someone else's crotch. If you knee me in the face, then you can apologise."  
  
Reid took the hint and rolled to the side, missing Chaz's face with his knee. As he sat up and coughed for what seemed like much too long, Chaz handed him the tissues from the nightstand, to wipe his face and hands.  
  
"Thoughts?" Chaz asked, wiping half-dried spit off the side of his own face, from where he'd swallowed at just the wrong time.  
  
"I really need to wash my face." Reid cleared his throat, trying to get his voice to level out. "How do you do this? I mean, it's incredible, but it's... I'm... In the _shower_ , next time, maybe?"  
  
"Don't go so deep and don't take so long. You know damn well we didn't come twenty minutes ago because you decided _not to_." Chaz laughed and coughed. "You've been gagged. What happens when you've got your mouth propped open?"  
  
Reid sighed and squeezed his eyes shut. "Right. Right, I do know better, don't I?"  
  
"Pretty sure you know that one even better than I do."  
  
Reid cracked a smile, after a contemplative moment. "Happy birthday. Now you just have to make it through the next two gifts."  
  
"Wait, what? There's _more_?" Chaz pushed himself up and held a hand out for Reid to join him. "Don't tell me he got me a thousand-dollar gift card to Whole Foods or something..."  
  
"I wouldn't put it past him, but we've got two more gifts for you that go together, and are going to want a closed door and maybe some loud music." Reid crawled up the bed and curled up against Chaz's side. "Maybe he'll put Hafidha in a nice hotel, for the night, again. After my birthday, maybe he'll put _us_ in a nice hotel."  
  
"How'd that go, anyway? I meant to ask, and then _Bollinger_."  
  
"I've never seen a man clean a hotel room so thoroughly. I'm pretty sure he could get away with murder." Reid laughed. "I'm also pretty sure that was more than half an hour and dinner's getting cold."  
  
"Nah. Oven's set to warm. It's just drying out. Put a little more sauce on it, and it'll be fine." Chaz paused and then turned his head to look at Reid and opened his mouth, the joke written plainly across his face, as though it weren't already echoing in the thoughts between them.  
  
"No. Don't say it."

* * *

"Okay, I have no idea where I am. Not yet. That is some very good obfuscation. These are people who expect something's coming after them, and given what I can't turn on, on their end, I think they build their own hardware and write most of their own software. _None_ of this is recognisably commercial." Hafidha sat on one arm of the chair, a Milky Way in one hand and her tablet in the other, while she absently watched the workmen fit and test another window. They were almost done, and once they were, it would be just her and Langly. On the one hand, no potential collateral damage, but on the other hand, the threat of collateral damage might be protecting them.  
  
"Custom rig just like our little friend, here," Langly observed. "Which doesn't know what it's doing, because it's headed for the bedroom. Whoever this is expects to be able to put it under the bed and wait for lights out, maybe not even today."  
  
"Hiding it under the bed's a good call no matter where it winds up striking," Hafidha pointed out, dropping the empty wrapper into the pile next to Langly's hip. "I think I need you to switch with me. I tracked it as back as it's going to get, but I think I need you to do your freaky electric shit, because I've run out of networked components connected to this line, and it's way too far out for me to jump and pray. I don't know what I'm looking for, so I'm not going to catch anything."  
  
"Gimmie." Langly noticed they were about halfway through the bag, and hoped they could safely order food, soon. He'd resort to Reid's kitchen if he had to, but the amount of crap piled in the doorway, from the construction, was not encouraging. "I don't know if I can do what you're asking. I can only do that to things I'm touching..."  
  
"Mythology, Ringo. Knock it off. We don't have time for you to be wrapped up in your own shit. You couldn't do electric at all, before last week." Hafidha shifted her work back to where Langly could find the threads and pick it up.  
  
"Yeah, well, extenuating circumstances, all right? It was a little different. I got a real personal introduction to the electrical system in that building." Langly knew the sugar wasn't going to hold him if he tried to do this, and they were running out of it, anyway. "Look, we're going to die, if I fuck this up, and _I_ might die if I _don't_ fuck this up. You a good enough shot to keep us alive if I order Mexican, and the CIA shows up instead?"  
  
"I don't start having problems until we get somewhere around Navy Seals," Hafidha joked. "Where are you ordering from?"


	35. Chapter 35

"Hey, gorgeous, I got good news, good news, and Mexican food. You should come home, and you might want to bring the third member of the task force with you, because some of that good news is _that_ kind of news." Langly offered the second bag of sopapillas to Hafidha, as he looked around the apartment, phone still in his pocket as he talked to Reid. He was pretty sure he'd gotten everything back where it went, and the spider was in the middle of Reid's desk, trapped both in a display case he'd nicked from something he'd be absolutely sure to put back in it and in a simulation that would keep its operators from pulling the plug, until he was sure he could follow them all the way home.  
  
"Chaz says he's not sure Mexican food and good news belong in the same sentence, if he's spending the night in a room with anyone who's been eating it."  
  
"Then he's going to have some problems whether he comes with you or not, because the delightful Agent Gates had just as much of it as I did," Langly drawled, without thinking.  
  
Reid's silence spoke volumes before his words finished the thought. "Why are you with Hafidha? I thought you were watching my apartment."  
  
"Yeah, well, good thing I was here. We had a little trouble, but it was my kind of trouble, so I called Penny and Hafs. Problem solved. We're good at that. And now the windows are in, so we're not going to have _more_ problems."  
  
"And you didn't call me to let me know."  
  
"Why would I call you? You couldn't have helped, and you'd have been freaking out about more shit going wrong in your house. No, I didn't call you, I fixed it, and now I'm calling you, because everything's fine, and it's safe to come home." Langly huffed and rolled his eyes. "And there's food. And I think we've got some new data on Helmsman."  
  
Hafidha would have taken the phone from him, if he'd been using it. In an attempt to salvage the conversation, she called Chaz and stepped into the bathroom with her phone. By, the time she returned, Langly was sprawled across the chair, again, sulking over a massive carne adovada burrito.  
  
"Why the hell would I tell him, before I fixed it? It's not like he was here! 'Oh, sure, an electronic murder-spider just walked into your house, haha, don't worry about it.' Like that's going to help anyone!" Langly took another bite and kept going, with his mouth full. "I'm not ruining his night over something he can't help with."  
  
"You didn't tell him you told Chaz, did you?" Hafidha snagged another sopapilla, still good, even cold.  
  
"I didn't even tell Chaz. I told him to catch you and Penny before you left the building, because I needed some help." Langly swallowed. "I'd have left him out of it, if I was sure I could hold the spider and the line. It was need to know. You know why? Because I needed somebody in here with no compunctions about the fucking furniture if I fucked up. I needed _your_ help, not his -- not _theirs_."  
  
A moment's staring, and Hafidha figured it out. "You were afraid it would get away from you and kill him."  
  
"Uh, yeah? Maybe? You and me, we've got the best chance of walking out of this alive, if I somehow screw it up. I'm not letting him step in front of that thing until we've got it contained." Langly leaned forward to make sure the burrito dripped into the container and not down his shirt. "Which we do. I don't see it walking out of that. I don't think it can generate enough pressure to knock that over or crack the glass."  
  
"I'm the last person to give relationship advice, but you should probably tell him that. He's probably still going to be pissed as hell, and really, he should be, but I've read his file. If anyone doesn't get to talk shit about stupid decisions made because they didn't want somebody to die..."

* * *

Reid was, it turned out, at least slightly appeased by the plate of chicken fajitas that went straight into the fridge. As much as being surrounded by gammas did seem to mean he was eating more frequently, nothing in the world could have prepared him to eat as much as they did. With a faint smile, he assured Langly he'd put quite enough in his mouth for one day, accompanied by the sound of Chaz trying not to blow refried beans out his nose in a burst of hysterical laughter. Langly, to his credit, did not ask.  
  
"Okay," Reid finally said, over a glass of horchata, "which one of you is going to tell me why the bell case is on my desk and no longer contains the lacquer orchid?"  
  
"Because it contains the robot spider that was sent here to kill us both." Langly kept chewing, twisting his shower-damp hair around one hand and tossing it over his shoulder. "Bad news, I don't know where it's operating from. Good news, that's a 'yet'. And we're just badass enough that nobody knows we've got it, yet, either. They think it's under the bed waiting for you to get home."  
  
"I'm still not sure that's a 'kill'." Hafidha tipped her head back and forth, tiny black rose beads clicking in her hair. "We haven't disassembled it yet, but I'm still thinking it's set to knock you out, because they've already taken him for interrogation once." She pointed at Langly. "If this is Helmsman's work, and from what I know, I have no reason to doubt it -- this isn't cheap equipment -- these people aren't after you. They're trying to use you to get to Paul Asher and John Byers. Fortunately for him, John Byers is dead."  
  
" _Un_ fortunately for my balls," Langly muttered. "Anyway, we've got it under glass, it doesn't know where it is, and Penny's sorting out its internals, past what we picked up trying to stop it and trace it. And tracing it led to ..." He pointed for Chaz to grab the laptop off the shelf behind him. "Me learning how to do some very questionable things, not very well. Fortunately, everybody's just paranoid enough to put security cameras in their halls and entryways, even in places that know better."  
  
"Wait, wait, back up." Reid put his glass on the table and followed with his forearms, as he leaned forward. "If that belongs to someone trying to _abduct_ us, then that means someone's waiting for it to finish the job. _Nearby_."  
  
"Yeah, probably, but it's being controlled _really_ remotely, and there's nothing big enough for surveillance out there." Langly shook his head.  
  
A wicked smile slid across Hafidha's face. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Spencer? We've got three agents in a room and complete control over what that thing sees and thinks it's doing."  
  
"That wasn't what I was thinking, and I intensely dislike the idea of using my apartment to invite a home invasion, but I would feel a great deal better if I knew we weren't in danger. I would really like to at least attempt to sleep at some point, and I'm not sure that's going to happen with this going on."  
  
"I'd say we should go somewhere else, but I'm not sure that really improves our chances." Chaz wiped his hands off and ran them through his hair.  
  
Langly nodded. "It's like Reid keeps saying -- he's not moving because the problem's just going to move with him. We have to make this stop. ... And I have to get a new front door in here, but there's no way I can make that happen before tomorrow morning."  
  
"Let's live that long, first." Reid did not sound amused.  
  
"If we take the people we're expecting are waiting for this spider-thing to finish the job, we're going to end up with two more former cartel assassins with no reason to tell us anything useful, and we're going to have let Helmsman know we caught the thing." Chaz closed his eyes, head tipped back. "If we go after the people controlling it--"  
  
"We don't know where they are," Reid reminded him.  
  
"Does that actually matter?" Hafidha pointed at Langly.  
  
"Maybe. Depends on what you want done." Langly reached behind him for another can of Jolt. "Also depends on whether I can do it and whether it's going to kill me to try. Hi, fun fact? Apparently that's something I have to worry about, now." He gestured to the laptop. "We'd have more, but Hafs stopped me before it got too stupid."  
  
Chaz grabbed Langly's wrist, staring into space for a moment, as his fingers prodded and he tried to remember what that wrist had felt like the last time it was in his hand. "Yeah, you have to stop doing that. Hurts already, doesn't it?"  
  
"I'm going to regret being alive, tomorrow." Langly snatched his wrist back. "And this is why we need a plan better than 'Oh, let's go screw around until we trip over something good!'"  
  
Hafidha nodded. "Yeah, we can go back after them, but he needs to eat and sleep before we try."  
  
Reid wordlessly eyed the wreckage of what looked like a catering order piled along the top of the half-wall.  
  
"There's two of us, and we wanted to make sure there would be enough left for the two of you." Hafidha shrugged and tipped her head at Chaz. "Well, for him, anyway."  
  
"... Speaking of him and doing stupid things, can't _he_ find the pickup team?" Langly finally stopped eating, when he realised he couldn't swallow any more.  
  
"Speaking of things that would be..." Chaz sighed, leaning forward to put his elbows on the table, folding his hands and resting his forehead on them. "Yes. I'm not going to enjoy it, but... technically, probably, yes. Provided they're nearby, and I can _see_ at least one of them."  
  
"That's his mythology talking," Hafidha pointed out to Langly.  
  
"That is the only thing keeping me sane," Chaz shot back. "Possibly also _alive_."  
  
"But, didn't we just establish we shouldn't eliminate the pickup team?" Reid eyed Langly curiously.  
  
"I have a terrible idea, and I wish I was doing this with people I've worked with more often, but if I'm not wrong about Special Agent Stick Figure's creepy brainwashing powers, we can make them take us home with them." Langly sat back and folded his arms across his chest, smiling smugly. "Then we don't have to track down the operators the hard way. We get delivered to the door, and _then_ we take the place out."  
  
"I like the way you think, but work with me, here." Hafidha reached around Langly for a can of Jolt. "First, we need to at least pretend to do this by the book. Agent Garcia already knows what's happening, so we call her, and then we call ... Falkner?"  
  
Chaz shook his head. "Prentiss. This is a BAU task force. I'm just lucky."  
  
"We let her know we've caught the pickup team, and we're forcing them to bring us back to the hive. Get Penny to keep an eye on Spencer's GPS signal, and close the gap when we stop moving. Who can we get for backup? This is probably going to be about the size of the last place we hit."  
  
"How long would it take to pull the same guys we had last time?" Langly asked, with a shrug. "If we start making calls now, and we don't move further than finding these guys until we have people ready..."  
  
"What time is it?" Reid asked.  
  
Chaz nudged Langly's laptop. "Ten-ish."  
  
"Everyone we need is probably still awake. I'll start making calls." Reid got up and went to his desk, both to use the phone there and to take a closer look at the robot spider. "We're going to need to trigger the spider's final ... whatever it does, I think, or somebody's going to notice something's wrong."  
  
"I got the spider," Langly volunteered, pointing at Chaz. "Let me know when you find our friends outside."  
  
"You fucking hope they're outside," Chaz pointed out. "If they're waiting in an empty apartment in one of these buildings, this whole thing goes down the toilet, and I've got a headache for nothing. Like you said, there's nothing big enough for surveillance out there, and we didn't spot anything coming in."  
  
"They're not controlling the spider. They don't need an entire surveillance van, they just need something we'd fit in the trunk of," Reid pointed out.  
  
"Okay, no, this is stupid. There's an easier way to do this." Hafidha held up her hands. "Back to the plan where we bring them to us. We trip the spider and put Chaz by the front door. He catches them on the way into the building. It's less strain on him and less time wasted."  
  
Langly shook his head. "You're assuming they're coming in the front. Half the time I don't even come in the front. No, if we want to keep this out of the apartment, he's at the top of the stairs. There's a window there. Pretend you're smoking or something."  
  
"Oh, don't worry about me." Chaz looked amused. "Okay, I like this plan better. This plan has a much higher chance of producing the desired results. Two more holes in it: what if they're taking us to a holding facility that isn't the operations base, and how do we hold things together in the space between us getting there and the tactical team getting there? Somebody's going to notice something's wrong."  
  
"One, it doesn't matter where they take us." Reid sat on the corner of his desk, a wary eye still on the spider under glass. "The building and everyone in it is still going to be part of the project. We're taking out more of Helmsman's resources, either way, and we still have the spider, so we can go after the other facility later, right?"  
  
"Two, Rabbit and I do bad things to the building's systems, while we wait for backup. Take the spider with us, and I can very easily follow it home -- the path's already marked, and the closer I am, the easier it's going to be. I'd rather be close enough to touch, but I'll take what I can get. Maybe we'll get lucky with a well-lit parking lot."  
  
"How the hell is that lucky?" Reid demanded, finally looking away from the spider.  
  
"Light poles are wired into something." Langly smiled. "Turns out a sixth sense about networking and too much time with a soldering iron translates pretty well."  
  
Reid took a deep breath and nodded slowly. "Okay. I'm calling Prentiss."  
  
"Not on that phone, you're not." Langly pointed.  
  
"It's probably tapped," Hafidha agreed.  
  
"Then what--"  
  
Langly held up his own phone. "I'll have Fitz cycle the numbers, when we're done. It'll be like the phone never existed."  
  
Reid sighed and pulled the phone Langly had built him out of his pocket. "I used to have a nice, calm, low-tech life..."


	36. Chapter 36

None of the three people in the front seat of what had turned out to be a white sedan with government plates spoke. Chaz sat crammed between two men in black suits that he resentfully noticed actually fit them, his knees jammed up under his chin, not to block the gearshift, passing information back to Reid, as he gathered it, hoping, in the background, that Langly was good enough to keep them from getting pulled over.  
  
None of the three people in the back spoke, either. Langly handled communications silently, feeding text and text messages to their somewhat distant pursuers. He'd passed on the plates of the car they were in with a request to put out a bulletin that it was not to be stopped, but Prentiss refused him with a reminder that mentioning the car on public channels would warn Helmsman's people they were coming. He sincerely hoped he could fuck up a police car, remotely, because there was no way the locals weren't going to spot Chaz sitting like a damn gargoyle, if they passed a speed trap.  
  
Between him and Reid, Hafidha sorted through the electronics in the car -- pulling data from phones, tablets, and GPS and feeding it into the laptop Reid held, typing as fast as he was able, in some bizarre shorthand. The two of them would likely know more than enough to gut the project, by the time they got where they were going, given that orders to assault and abduct a federal agent had fairly clearly been handed down from higher up. What 'higher up' would turn out to be was still in question, to some degree, but both men in the front seat believed their orders to have come from Helmsman -- a person they'd never met, but understood to be the source of their salaries and their contracts. The same situation they'd encountered, so far, at this level. They could only hope whoever or whatever they found where they were headed would be more forthcoming.  
  
They were, as far as Reid could tell, somewhere in Virginia, but he wasn't taking his eyes off the screen often enough to figure out where. Trees. Everything was dark, and there were trees. Chaz handed him a flash of the last road sign they'd passed -- some forest road -- and the suggestion of a shrug. Great. Wonderful. Somewhere unspecified in the woods of Virginia, in a car with two potential murderers, in the middle of the night. Somewhere in the back of his head, he wondered if he shouldn't just be getting used to this.  
  
One forest road to another, and he felt the turn, and then the change in the texture of the completely unlit road. This plan was going to have been completely stupid if all they found was a cabin and a few guards, but as the road smoothed, Reid had a feeling things wouldn't be that simple. One sharp turn and then another, and one more brought them around to what looked like a glowing fortress, rising five storeys out of the sudden clearing in front of them, like a fairy castle done by the Department of Public Works.  
  
Langly got as far as, "Ho, sh--" before Hafidha clapped a hand over his mouth.  
  
A tiny square of light closer to them than the building ahead caught Reid's eye and he turned Chaz's eyes toward it -- a guard booth, no doubt. The reflectors on the gate that closed the road became obvious, as they approached. Too many people, they thought. How many minds could Chaz hold on to, at once? And what would happen once they passed? It was much too late to assume they hadn't been seen. The car, anyway. At this distance, it was probably still just a pair of headlights.  
  
Reid dropped his eyes to the screen as something flashed -- a conversation between Hafidha and Langly that he could at least make sure Chaz was aware of, focusing on the words as they appeared.  
  
' _We're not making it through_ that _, in_ this _._ '  
  
' _Iron gate, eight feet high, nobody with seatbelts... Don't do it, Chazzie..._ '  
  
' _Probably electronic. Come on you heap of bolts and bad wiring something in that god damn hut is......... Bingo._ '  
  
The gate began to slide open, clanking and clattering, and the guard panicked and mashed buttons, picking up a phone he threw aside in disgust, after a second. In a last-ditch effort, he drew his gun and stepped out of the booth to get a better angle on the windshield.  
  
Chaz snarled, and Reid nearly threw up from the sudden wash of loathing that bloomed out from the front seat, but the guard staggered back out of the way, without taking the shot, a dazed look on his face, as they drove past him. Langly shivered and clenched his hands between his knees, and Hafidha reached up and smacked Chaz across the back of the head, as the car pulled past the gate.  
  
What parking there was seemed to have filled outward from the building, which made sense. No one wanted to walk too far, after that drive, and that led Reid to wonder if this even was a 'drive to work' situation. The size of the parking lot compared to the number of visible floors suggested that might not be the case. No windows below the third floor, though, and each floor was larger than the one below it, like an inverted step pyramid -- nice architecture, but also architecture that prevented certain types of assault. Leaving the wide roof flat was an interesting choice, though, and one that made him suspect a helipad.  
  
His assessment of the building was interrupted when Langly suddenly leaned forward and tugged at Chaz's hair, before shoving an arm into the front seat, gesturing toward a lamppost with one car already parked beside it. As Chaz made the suggestion to the driver, Langly's other hand came up with the inevitable multi-tool, and he pried the case off the dome light and pulled out the bulb. They'd be obvious as hell in the light from the lamp, but the reflex held.  
  
As soon as they stopped, Langly was out of the car, unscrewing the access panel on the base of the lamppost, while the badges dealt with their supposed abductors. By the time he looked up to give them the thumbs up, the two men were zip-tied together and shut in the back seat of the car, and Chaz was sitting on the ground, leaning against the side of the car, looking like he'd been kicked in the head a few times.  
  
"You look like I felt about six hours ago," Langly teased as Reid popped the trunk and passed Chaz a protein drink and a bottle of orange juice.  
  
"I am never doing that again," Chaz groaned, opening the orange juice first, and drinking it as fast as he could swallow. "That is too much for too long. I was expecting something in _Alexandria_ , maybe. Fredricksburg, if I absolutely _had to_. Everything's been much closer than... _this_."  
  
"See? And I thought I was going to have a nice, relaxing afternoon cheating foreign diplomats at card games on the internet. But, no. Murder-spider." Langly looked entirely put-upon. "This shit just comes out of nowhere."  
  
"Speaking of shit coming out of nowhere, I need you to get me into the building." A feral smile crawled across Chaz's face, as he pushed the sweaty hair off his cheek. He had to get in, before their backup showed up, but maybe he could just sit here and stretch his legs out for another minute or two. "I'm going to do something inadvisable and inadmissible, but if we're lucky, it'll still be more useful than we'll get sitting out here."  
  
"You should sit down and eat something," Reid argued, tossing Chaz his bag.  
  
"I can stand up and eat something just as well. It's not like anyone's going to be looking at _me_." With a click of the buckle, the bag was back where it should've been the whole time, and Chaz slowly dragged himself back to his feet, wishing his legs were even a little less numb.  
  
"How are we for guards, out here? Can anyone tell?" Reid asked, as Hafidha stepped out of the glow of the lamp to look for something in the sky.  
  
"At this hour, it's just the man in the box," Langly muttered, distractedly, one hand in the guts of the lamppost and the other resting on his laptop. "Everyone else is inside."  
  
"Just get me in there, Frank. And somebody call me when backup gets here." Chaz stretched his leg and started toward the building, only to look back when Hafidha whistled.  
  
" _Call_ you? Are you nuts? I know what you're about to do." She reached into her jacket and tossed him an earpiece. "I've been screwing with it to see if I could turn it into something Ringo and I could use more effectively. You and Agent Evil back here have that freako psychic connection, and I've been looking into digital counterparts."  
  
"See? _I'm_ the evil twin. More importantly? I'm the ears, out here." Reid nodded at Chaz. "You'll hear me, whether or not that works."  
  
"Backup plans are always good." Chaz put the earpiece in and headed toward the doors, vanishing somewhere between the light from one lamppost and the next.

* * *

JJ and Rossi were the first to arrive, leaving another car behind them at the gate, as they parked near where Reid sat on the trunk of a white sedan, talking with Agent Gates. As he looked past them, Rossi spotted 'Frank' sitting at the base of the lamppost, both hands in the wires.  
  
"What... is he doing?"  
  
"It is going to be better for all of us if you just don't ask." Reid shrugged, wide-eyed. "Besides, I couldn't tell you. I don't actually know what he's doing."  
  
"You don't know." JJ looked entirely unimpressed with that answer.  
  
"Surprise! There are things I don't know!" Reid smiled wryly. "The important thing is that we do know that someone in this building is controlling the device that entered through my window with intent to kill or incapacitate two of us. Presumably, one of the targets was me. I'm not entirely pleased with this sequence of events, as you might have guessed."  
  
Hafidha pulled the spider, still screwed into its wood and glass case, out of the driver's seat, where they'd left it while stuffing their captives into the back seat. "You'll want to get the fluid tested. It's still pretty damp."  
  
"It's also all over my desk, because that's not waterproof." Reid's smile could've cut glass. "But, by manipulating the spider, we caught the pair of gentlemen in the back seat, and they were kind enough to bring us to their employers."  
  
"Kind enough?" Rossi raised his eyebrows inquisitively.  
  
"Why do I feel like there's more to that story?" JJ asked, looking back and forth between Reid and Hafidha.  
  
"Agent Villette is very persuasive."  
  
"Speaking of Special Agent Stick Figure and his apparently irresistible charms, how's that guard doing? The one by the gate?" Langly asked, glancing up from his work.  
  
"The one sobbing into a puddle of vomit?" JJ eyed Langly expectantly.  
  
"Hey, don't look at me. I'm machines only." Langly's shoulders moved like he might hold up his hands, if they weren't otherwise occupied.  
  
"I believe the gate guard is reconsidering his life choices," Reid volunteered, remembering the nausea and despair that had washed over him. He was starting to figure out that Chaz didn't get less effective, when he was pushing too hard -- his control just got worse.  
  
Hafidha shrugged. "At least we didn't _shoot_ him."  
  
"Where _is_ Agent Villette?" Rossi scanned the parking lot, only to turn around almost directly into the man.  
  
Chaz cleared his throat. "Sorry. Long drive. Had to go, well, _go_. What did you need?"  
  
"Would you like to explain what happened to the gate guard?"  
  
"Would I like to? No." Chaz jammed his hands into his pockets. "Pretty sure we just scared the shit out of him. He should be fine."  
  
"I see." Rossi nodded, figuring he'd be bribing Duke with the good whiskey, by the end of the day. "And these two gentlemen in the car were just kind enough to bring you home with them."  
  
"That took a little bit of convincing, but they did want to introduce us to the people in this building. That's how this whole thing started! We just convinced them to give us a less-violent introduction."  
  
"More former cartel people?" JJ asked, waving as the tactical team arrived. "They don't look easy to convince of anything. What's going to come out in the interviews, Villette?"  
  
"Nothing untoward. If the interviews go like the last few, nothing at all." Chaz shook his head and shrugged. "We didn't torture them, Agent Jareau. I know that look. There's not a mark on them. We just surprised them enough that they saw the benefit in doing things our way."  
  
"This the 'enhanced interrogation' technique you were practising on Agent Reid?" JJ drawled, looking unimpressed.  
  
"Actually? Yes." Reid looked over with a sly smile. "That is exactly what he used, and I can confirm that if you're not me, it's extremely effective."  
  
Chaz cleared his throat. "It's only _a little_ effective on him, and he's getting better every day."  
  
"Okay! I've seen that, and I don't really want to think about it!" JJ held up her hands and shook her head, before turning to watch the tactical team assembling closer to the building. She knew the information on the layout of the building and the locations of most of the people inside was coming from Frank, because she could hear him, but she realised he wasn't speaking. He was just staring, somewhat vacantly, at the screen of the laptop next to him, both hands still in the lamppost.  
  
Chaz caught where she was looking. "Text to speech, I think. He and Hafs rigged something up that can trace the electrical usage and make predictions or something, and I think it's broadcasting its own results. It was a lot of large words and I lost where they were going somewhere in the middle."  
  
JJ nodded, willing to accept the idea that some extremely technical computer wizardry was at work. "Frank? Can you give me an idea of total numbers?"  
  
"Five floors aboveground, another five underground... some of that space reads like college dorms, some of it like a prison -- we've seen that layout before, middle of the building's mostly offices with server farm or laboratory draw on the second floor -- still no windows, climate controlled... Counting terminals, and assuming one per person, we're ... somewhere around two hundred." Langly didn't look any less spacey, as he went on. "Building's taller than it is wide. It _looks_ like it should be more, but it's not going to be a lot more. Downstairs is what you have to worry about."  
  
He suddenly leaned back and looked around the lamppost. "Don't kick the doors goddammit! Just tell me where you are!"  
  
JJ heard his voice cut in over ... his other voice, and realised that whatever the information broadcast was, it didn't sound quite like him, just surprisingly close, a little more mechanical. But, without the comparison, she'd never have noticed.  
  
Rossi sighed and shook his head. "They're not used to working with a good tech team. Everything's based on the idea that the best way in is with force and surprise, in a situation like this."  
  
"It's gonna be a lot more surprise if I unlock the doors," Langly muttered under his breath. "Besides, you can't get through those doors with a ram. You'd need a cutting torch. You can't get into this building without a good tech team or a key."  
  
"So, what do we think? Is Helmsman here?" Reid asked, watching the tactical team, so he wouldn't look at Chaz.  
  
"Nah, it's the middle of the night. You really think a guy like that is going to be living in a public works bunker?" Chaz shook his head.  
  
"It's not a public works bunker." Rossi looked up at him. "Those start at ground level, so when the bomb hits, the debris won't bury the entrance."  
  
"It's not one now, but I'm pretty sure it was one. Have you been listening to the layout?" Chaz reflexively stepped closer to Reid, as he began to come to the conclusion that he was absolutely not dressed to be standing in the middle of a parking lot, in the middle of the night, in late October. "It was probably always an Air Force property, which means the transfer records for it are going to be almost invisible."  
  
"And that's why you didn't know it was here." Hafidha looked up from her tablet and waved to Rossi. "Much like you, this isn't my case, but I keep getting dragged into it."  
  
"I'm pretty sure this is because Reid's actually cursed." JJ cleared her throat to cover a laugh.  
  
Reid sputtered. "I am not _cursed_!"  
  
"You... kind of are. You and Hotch."  
  
"You think that's it?" Rossi asked, elbowing JJ. "He inherited Hotch's career curse?"  
  
"Nah," JJ shook her head. "This started _way_ before Hotch left."  
  
"Less 'inherited', more 'infected'," Chaz suggested.  
  
"Just for that I'm not giving you my jacket," Reid huffed with a sharply disappointed look at Chaz. "We've got two hundred people in that building. What, exactly, are we going to ... do with them?"  
  
"Contain them, until we can get more people up here. I'd say we'd be sending a lot of them home after the interviews, but if Frank is correct, most of them live here." Rossi looked contemplative. "We weren't expecting something this large. Thirty people, maybe? Fifty? But not two hundred. And most of them are going to be your average federal employees -- accountants and clerks. I'm willing to venture a very small number of people know what's going on."  
  
"What the hell did I just say to you!" Frank snapped, not looking at any of them. "Leave the systems online! If you shut that down, we may never get back into it!"  
  
"That was me," Hafs offered, apologetically. "Somebody hit the nuke button on the way out the door. We lost one, but it didn't transmit to the others."  
  
"Oh. Shit. Thanks." Langly looked over his shoulder. " _You're_ in?"  
  
"You know how it is -- somebody always plugs a cel phone into a spare USB port."  
  
"Who the hell is this idiot? They're making us look bad! Is this somebody I used to know, or is this some dumb kid? How pissed do I need to be?"  
  
"Nobody I know. Two-six-three."  
  
"Some dumb kid," Langly muttered.  
  
"Some dumb kid older than your boyfriend," Hafidha teased.  
  
"I am not going to justify that with a reply."  
  
"You just did."


	37. Chapter 37

"Huh?" Reid jerked awake, slamming his knee on the underside of his desk and catching his coffee before it tipped into his lap. He took a long swig, rubbed his eye, and looked up at Lewis.  
  
"Long night?"  
  
"I had about three hours of sleep, yesterday. I've been home for about an hour, since then, in which time someone tried to kill me, which resulted in a tour of rural Virginia, and I've gotten..." Reid squinted at the monitor in front of him. "About fifteen minutes of sleep, since."  
  
Lewis's eyes widened, thoughtfully, and she nodded. "Why are you here?"  
  
"Because I have to finish the paperwork. Also, my car is still... somewhere that isn't here, and public transportation without sleep sounds like how to end up in Norfolk, by accident. And I... don't really want to go home without backup. And I can't anyway, because it's a crime scene, for the second time this year. So, I'm just gonna--" Reid pointed at his coffee cup. "--get myself another and try to finish this paragraph, before I beg Prentiss to let me sleep on her couch for an hour or two."  
  
"Should we be getting you a hotel room, until this is over, or a safehouse?"  
  
Reid shook his head and finished his coffee. "Neither. I have somewhere safe to stay. I just have to get there without being followed, which means I'm not leaving until Villette sleeps."  
  
"He was involved?" Lewis asked, and then nodded again. "It's the case you can't talk about."  
  
"It's the case I can't talk about." Reid nodded back. "And as much as I hate it when people say it to me, I'm going to say it. It's for your own good. If you like your job, don't ask about this one. We're all fired, if this goes wrong."  
  
"I'll leave you to that, then, but if you need help sorting out your own situation, let me know. I've at least slept in the last two days." Lewis retreated to her own desk.  
  
"Thanks. I'm just going to... coffee." Reid eased himself out of the chair, once again grateful for his own forethought in acquiring the cushion for it. He seemed to have avoided cutting off the circulation to his ass, while napping. As he tried to make the room stop spinning, the door on the other side of it opened, and Chaz staggered in with a plastic bag and a pair of cup carriers loaded with large cups from the place downstairs.  
  
"You look like a man in need of more coffee. Fortunately for you, I survived the elevator."  
  
Reid dropped back into his desk chair like someone had cut his strings. "You're awfully merciful, considering I just ruined your birthday."  
  
"It's Halloween. We both know a case was pretty much inevitable, and my team just abandoned me to go handle something in Michigan. I get to hold the desk for this one, because I'm already up to my neck in paperwork from last night." Chaz set the cup carriers on Alvez's still unoccupied desk and tossed the bag to Reid. "Of course, it's my birthday, and nobody was going to let that get past them. Dim side? Almost every giant bag of Halloween candy is twenty percent Snickers and/or Reese's. You've inherited a fifth of my take. It should keep you standing until we can get out of here."  
  
"How are you still so awake?" Reid asked, trying to get his half-numb fingers to open the wrapper on a mini Snickers. Finally, he gave up and went for a disturbingly light bag of Reese's Pieces.  
  
"Caffeine and sugar. And I've had more sleep than you have, I think." Chaz took a sip from one of the cups, put it back in the holder, and passed all four of that set to Reid. "Yours. Caramel hazelnut, because you need the caramel. All of them are triples."  
  
" _Triples?_ Oh my god, you love me." Reid leaned in, both hands extended, with a look generally found on those receiving some legendary gift, in illuminated manuscripts.  
  
"Nah, if I loved you, I'd actually have gotten your order right." Chaz laughed and reached for his own coffee. "This is more along the lines of 'It's going to be really inconvenient if you escaped death last night, only to die of caffeine withdrawals and hypoglycaemia, before lunch'."  
  
Lewis took notice when Reid started with the cup Chaz had already taken a sip from, making no move to even wipe it off, first. If he was tired enough for that, maybe it was a good thing he hadn't tried to go anywhere.  
  
"Where are Alvez and Simmons?" Reid asked, finally taking notice that he and Lewis were the only occupants of this side of the floor.  
  
"It's seven in the morning, Spencer," Lewis reminded him, noticing that he didn't ask about JJ or Rossi, which meant, she thought, that he knew where they were. Prentiss was probably already here, and Garcia kept strange hours and a closed door.  
  
"Okay, revised question: what are _you_ doing here, at this hour?"  
  
"I thought I'd come in early and catch up on a few things, before it got loud."  
  
Chaz made a contemplative sound and tipped his head. "We're about to be pretty bad for 'loud', but as soon as I'm sure Reid can stand up without falling over, we can take that somewhere else."  
  
"Primal scream therapy," Reid joked, eyeing Lewis over his coffee. "I'm getting very, very tired of people trying to kill me in my sleep."

* * *

Langly tipped his chair back. "Tell me you love me."  
  
"Why, what have you got?" Byers looked up from where he sat in the chair Langly had started keeping on his side of the room for Reid.  
  
"Pucker up, 'cause you're going to be kissing my ass for decades to come." Langly cracked his knuckles. "I've got a telephone number for Helmsman that was good at four, yesterday. Records don't purge for another hour. And that means I've got an address, right down to the office number. And you're thinking he's not going to go back there, because he's got to know. And you're right. But, if we know where he is, we know who he is. And the directory says..."  
  
Byers leaned over to see the screen, as Langly hit enter on the search. "A1C J. Weston."  
  
" _Airman First Class?_ " Langly gaped in horror. "Kill me now."  
  
"You didn't really think it was going to be that easy, did you?" Byers rested his forehead on Langly's shoulder, misery clear in the set of his shoulders.  
  
"Easy!? I can tell you what forty percent of the people in this organisation eat for lunch. I can tell you more about your dad, right now, than you knew the last time you saw him. I spent last night on a road trip through the rolling hills of western Virginia, with three feds and two cartel assassins. We've been after this guy for months. He's been after us for years! _Easy!?_ " Langly put a hand on Byers's head like he was going to shove it off his shoulder, but he stopped and smoothed Byers's hair. "It's my fault, this time. Take a note, because this is the only time I'm going to apologise for it. I'm sorry I didn't let sleeping feds lie."  
  
"Langly, we have to finish this. Not like last time. It's not about us. It never was. We promised to do something, and we've been hiding from it, all these years, because we didn't have the tools or the influence to face it and win." Byers lifted his head and turned Langly to face him, with one hand. "You brought us the feds we need to end this. They're helping us, and it's not because of anything I did. That's all you."  
  
"I've seen the way you and Reid look at each other. He'd slip you the pork sword, if he wasn't worried about what Penny would say. Not what I would say. God, he better not be worried about what I would say. You've been doing that nerd-flirting thing since you laid eyes on him. I know what I'd do if you were looking at _me_ like that."  
  
"I have not! You're projecting."  
  
"Just because you happen to be both my best friend and an intensely fuckable slab of man-meat, that doesn't change the fact that you've been flirting with my boyfriend longer than I've _had_ a boyfriend." Langly pushed his glasses up and smirked. "And I know you weren't as drunk as I was when you told me you--" He killed the audio in the room, just in case Frohike was awake. "--wanted him to bend you over the sink."  
  
"I never said that!" Byers sat bolt upright, hand dropping away from Langly's face.  
  
"Maybe not, but I'm pretty sure moaning enthusiastically at the idea counts. Horseshoes, hand grenades, and you wanting to get boned by my boyfriend." Langly watched the flush creep up Byers's face. "I mean, unless you're going to try to tell me I'm that good in bed, which I might be, but not that drunk. You should try me again, some time."  
  
"So you can get that drunk _again_? You're the one who said you had to get drunk enough to sleep with me."  
  
"Because it's a terrible fucking idea, and when I'm sober, I know it!" Langly snapped, hands finally moving from the keyboard, to grab Byers by the shoulders. "It has _always_ been a bad idea, Byers. And now it's a worse idea. You're in a relationship. I'm in a relationship. You're finally in a relationship with a sane and reasonable person who actually exists and visits and thinks you're adorable. I mean, I think you're pretty cute, too. I'm pretty sure we've crossed the line into objective fact, there. John Byers is cute as hell, and there's nothing you can do about it. That's just how it is. I don't want to screw up the first decent relationship I've ever seen you have, and I'm counting myself, Frohike, and your dad, here. I don't want to screw up the first romance I haven't been a third-party to, either, but that's looking a little more flexible. You know Reid offered to go get you and bring you to bed with us, if I couldn't sleep, after the hospital? I think I'm in love. I'm pretty sure I'm in love. I mean, I love you, Byers, but not like this. ...Still want to bone you after about three drinks."  
  
Byers slapped the hands off his shoulders. "And that's the point, Langly. You have to get drunk before you even think it."  
  
"No, I have to be drunk before I think it's a _good idea_. Obviously, I'm thinking it right now. And you know what? Even being drunk doesn't make it a good enough idea, most of the time. Have I literally ever hit on you before, uh... right now?"  
  
"No, and if this is hitting on me, you're doing a piss-poor job of it."  
  
" _Good_."  
  
"What the _hell_ , Langly!?"  
  
"Look, it's been... we've been doing this for almost thirty years, right? And twenty-five years ago, we were in Nebraska, and I got shitfaced and really started looking at you. Or maybe I started looking at you, and then I got shitfaced, I don't remember, it was _Nebraska_! I was trying not to look at Nebraska. Maybe it was something about the light, I don't know, but I started thinking it. And I knew what to do with that. I put it under a box and tried to forget it. Delete file 'Horny Thoughts About John Byers's Dick'. And it mostly worked. Mostly. Except every time I got drunk, there it was, again. There _you_ were again. It is technically possible that I may have had something that _might_ qualify as sex with a waitress -- and I'm not talking about that -- because I was trying to stop thinking about how incredible it would be if you just threw me up against the wall and rammed your dick up my ass." Langly grabbed the can of Jolt from next to his keyboard, pretending his hand wasn't shaking as he took a sip and tried not to pour it into his lap. "And then this whole thing with Susanne breaking up with you, like she has any right to call it that after this long, and you wanted me -- god, you _begged for me_ \-- even if it was only for an hour, and now? Now, I don't know what the hell to do with it any more. Twenty-five years later, it's finally awkward. Congratulations, you broke me."  
  
He finished the Jolt, crushed the can against the desk, and tossed it over his shoulder. "Pretty sure I'm supposed to be saving the American people, not agonizing over your hot ass. Which _is_ hot. _I'd_ do you."

* * *

Chaz took one hand off the wheel to tap the mute button on Reid's phone, where it sat in the cradle on the dash. "Okay, so my actual point of curiosity, here, is why the hell Whiskey's answering Fitz's phone."  
  
"He and Frank are probably sleeping." Reid shrugged and held on to the door handle, as Chaz followed Frohike's next instruction, flipping the car in a completely illegal U-turn and then making a right across three lanes, to get around the median and dodge the major intersection ahead of them. "They do that. I mean, together. In the same bed. It's a stress thing."  
  
"I have no idea how you're so comfortable with that. I mean--" Chaz hit the button again. "Yeah, we made it. Come on, old man, give me something difficult."  
  
"You see the big road coming up?" Frohike asked. "Miss that. Two streets before it, make a right. That'll put you straight across on the same road. You've got about three miles before we start dodging cameras again. _Give you something difficult_... Not with Agent Reid in the car. I lose both of you, and the hippy's gonna kill me."  
  
Chaz put the phone on mute, again. "It just seems like the kind of thing I'd actually be bothered by."  
  
"And yet, you're not," Reid pointed out.  
  
"Different relationship. He's got an incredible body and I absolutely enjoy every second I get to spend touching it, but that's all this is. You're... It's serious, with the two of you."  
  
"That's part of why I'm comfortable with it. I know where I belong. I know where the lines are. And I know that whatever's going on between the two of them, it's been going on longer than I've been acquainted with them, and it will continue with or without me. It's just not about me. I'm not going to step in and presume I have the right to make those kinds of demands. There are demands I'll make! You've watched me do it! But, those are about me. Those affect me directly. Until I wind up in bed with Fitz, this doesn't." Reid tried not to swallow his tongue at the next turn. "I have a comfortable life that I sometimes have the opportunity to share with the man I love, who also has his own life. In some ways, you and I are more of an inseparable unit."  
  
"And may I be the first to say that's fucked up." Angry honking followed as Chaz pulled across seven lanes with what he was sure was more than enough space, even if no one slowed down. "It's absolutely true, but it's also absolutely fucked up, as is the entirety of this ... thing. I'm enjoying it, but what are we doing?"  
  
"Boldly going where no man has gone before."  
  
"If this is some Kirk/Spock/Bones thing, _he's_ Bones," Chaz insisted, slowing down just enough for the shorter block length of the residential area.  
  
Reid looked contemplative for a few seconds. "I don't know how I feel about being Kirk."  
  
"Wait, why are _you_ Kirk?"  
  
"Because it's your mind-meld."  
  
Chaz scoffed. "There's no way. You're the one with the zen garden and the ticky-tacky boxes. I am the master of overemotional bullshit decisions."  
  
"I'm sorry, have you looked at me recently? _You're_ the master of overemotional decision making?"  
  
"Yeah, but when _you_ do it, no one else can tell."  
  
"That is such a load of shit, and you know it. I kicked a man in the face. I went running in, with no backup, and kicked a man in the face."  
  
"Too much time in my head. Word choice. And you shot him in the knee first." Chaz hit the button on the phone. "Two and a half of three and moving much faster than you think we are. Where's the next turn?"  
  
Frohike guided them in through the last few streets, missing every camera on the route but the one that was unavoidable, and he was waiting for them, pistol in both hands, as they pulled into the loading dock, the door rolling down behind them.   
  
Reid got out first, turning sideways in his seat and pulling himself out with both hands on the roof of the car, where he left them. "It's just us. I'm absolutely sure we weren't followed, and we did it without any GPS-enabled devices that we're aware of. You might want to sweep the car, just to be sure, but I'm pretty sure we came in clean. And thank you."  
  
Chaz got out slowly. "It's _my_ car. I don't think anyone's watching it, but he's right. We didn't have it checked, before we left, and it's been sitting out all night by his place."  
  
"I just wanted to get out of there. We didn't have the equipment, and I'm not sure where Hafidha is." Reid sighed and rested his head on his hands. "I'm so tired."  
  
"God damn it. I'll take care of it." Frohike holstered the gun and shook his head, as Chaz went around to grab a bag from the trunk. "Both of you go inside. I think Langly and Byers went to bed. They're pretty screwed up about this whole thing, for obvious reasons. I guess Langly almost figured out who Helmsman was, before the caffeine stopped holding him up. He was pretty upset, when it didn't work. They got something, though. Left me what info they had, so I could keep an eye on it, but I think it's dead. Nobody's moving, yet, and at this hour, after something like that, I should be looking at people running like they've got ants up their asses."  
  
"To be fair," Chaz said, on his way up the stairs, "those names may be dead because we _arrested_ them, last night. Hafs _might_ have the whole list, maybe, but none of the rest of us do, yet. I have a handful of names for... other reasons, and if we don't have a list by the time I wake up, I'd be happy to check what you've got against what I've got."  
  
"It's almost over, isn't it?" Frohike followed them up. "Whether or not this pans out, this is the end for Overlord's pet project. There's no way they're coming out of this one. Asher's barely going to need to make an argument past linking the project to the abduction of two federal employees and the attempted murder of an FBI agent."  
  
"The blame for this is going to be shifted. Someone lower down is going to wind up paying for it, public apologies will be made, reforms promised." Reid shook his head. "It's going to be a nasty blow, but by itself I don't actually think this is enough. Especially because _I'm_ the victim. Right now, I'm still dealing with Narcisse's increasingly ridiculous accusations, and those are going to come out, once this is made public. Within a matter of days, with the right press releases, it's going to look like a covert operation to protect the general public from _me_."  
  
"Time to do what we do best, then." Frohike closed the door at the top of the stairs behind them, reflexively locking it as he went forward to get what he'd need to check the car for more than just the obvious bugs. "Prime the pump of public opinion."  
  
Chaz and Reid headed into the back, down a hall sufficiently quieter to the front of the building to be dizzying. Langly's door was, unsurprisingly, closed. So was Byers's.  
  
"Do we want to guess?" Chaz asked looking back and forth between the two doors. "And two, if we pick Frank's, do we want to _knock_?"  
  
"I'd rather not wake him up," Reid decided, holding up a finger. "Which means we pick Frank's door, and we don't knock. I don't knock. This is where we find out how directly certain people's decisions affect me."  
  
Byers sat at the head of Langly's bed, visible in the dim blue glow of the nightlights, his pyjamas half-unbuttoned, and Langly's head in his lap. One hand held his tablet and the other had Langly's hair twisted around the fingers. He looked up, suddenly guilty, as the door opened on a shadow that was probably Reid -- the only person that tall who would be here without setting off the alarms, at _least_.  
  
"He's asleep. I knew you'd be here, eventually, and I thought I'd get up before then, but..." Byers gestured at his lap with the tablet. "I couldn't wake him. Well, I _could_ have, but I really didn't want to."  
  
"Just tell me if we're sleeping on the couch." Reid sounded exhausted, and more than that, resigned.  
  
"On the-- Are you kidding me?" Byers's eyes rounded in horror. "He'd _kill_ me! No, you belong here. I just... can't get up without waking him."  
  
Reid nodded, stumbling into the room and leaving the door open for Chaz to follow. "Toss whatever pillows you're not using to the other end of the bed. If you're okay with it, I think we can make this work."  
  
Byers watched the twins -- and they truly were more and more alike, every time he saw them together -- vanish into the bathroom with a single bag. At least there were some clothes between them, unlike last time Reid's apartment had become a crime scene. By the time the twins reappeared, both dressed in opposite halves of a set of pyjamas, he found himself no closer to exiting the room.  
  
Reid approached the head of the bed, first, perching carefully on the very edge, behind Langly, just watching him sleep, for a moment, before he leaned in and laid a gentle kiss on one cheek. As he sat up, his eyes caught on bite marks on Byers's chest, and he raised his eyes inquisitively.  
  
Byers looked down in confusion, and then folded an arm across his chest and cleared his throat. "Penny. I mean we-- But, not-- This is exactly what it looks like, and that's from last night."  
  
And then it was Reid's turn to look guilty. "She didn't say a word. I promise you, I didn't know."  
  
"It's business. When things happen, you get up and go." Byers shrugged the shoulder that wouldn't disturb Langly.  
  
"I'm glad he has you." Reid stood up to make his way around the other side of the bed, where Chaz was already trying to get comfortable at the opposite end from Byers and Langly.  
  
"And I'm glad he has _you_. I've seen very few people so dedicatedly alone, even among friends, but he's different, with you. It's good." Byers paused, waiting until Reid sat down on the other side of the bed. "And we -- you and I -- we need to talk about something, later. Just the two of us."  
  
Reid wound himself around Chaz's back, as if he belonged there. "I told you. I know. It's fine," he murmured, trying to stay awake long enough for Chaz to drift off first.  
  
"Not that." Byers sighed. "Sort of that. It's complicated."  
  
"Later. _Coffee_."


	38. Chapter 38

Langly woke first, warm and slightly uncomfortable. Everything smelled like Byers, and that was perfectly reasonable, but his hair was caught on something, and this wasn't a position he was used to finding Byers in. Slowly he figured out that he was wrapped around Byers's leg, head resting on Byers's other bent leg, and that Byers was going to have a hell of a crick in his back, when he woke up. Which meant his hair was caught on Byers's hand. As he carefully untangled himself, he spotted the tablet, where it had fallen beside Byers's hip. He'd fallen asleep reading...  
  
And the previous day slammed back down across Langly's mind. They'd been so close. He'd almost done it. But, he'd been looking in the wrong place again -- thinking like the man he'd been twenty years ago. Thinking like it was still twenty years ago, when some records were still more often on paper than digital. Financials. He needed to look at the money, again, because they'd missed this building. Hafs thought it had always been an Air Force property -- or at least that the purchase had been outside the range they were looking at -- but, even so, someone had to have requested it. Someone had to be in charge of keeping the lights on. There would be paper, somewhere, and these days all the paper was electronic.  
  
Sitting up, he spotted Chaz lying the wrong way on the bed, curled up tightly and clutching the hand pressed against his chest from behind. Reid's hand, Langly assumed, following that arm up to a bare shoulder. He was at the wrong angle to see much more except that the lumps in the blanket suggested Reid was pressed close enough that if they'd both been shirtless, there would be a sound when he got up. That was not normal. At all. He went in the middle because nothing got behind either of the twins, in bed. Except, apparently, each other, now. Given the other option was one of them turning their back on Byers, he could see it.  
  
He reached for Byers's tablet, and then realised he didn't need it, easing himself over to the other side of Byers, instead, and slipping under the blankets, as he picked up the network and started putting together the pieces for a new angle of attack. Stretching out one leg, he put his head back on Byers's thigh and curled his toes against the bottom of Chaz's foot. It was a good thing he'd gotten a big bed. Frohike had given him a hard time about it, at the time, but who was laughing, now?  
  
Chaz was the next to wake, with a low, sick sound that could've become a scream, if he hadn't woken himself making it. The wall was warm, tonight -- except that wasn't the wall and this wasn't his room. He found Reid still dreaming, pressed as close against his back as the wall should have been, one hand splayed across the middle of his chest, as if to keep his pounding heart from leaping out of it. A little unsettling, until all the pieces snapped back into place, but probably better than waking up alone.  
  
And that was a curious thought -- he _preferred_ to have nightmares alone, where there was no one to wake up and find him, no one to ask for an explanation, to try to make it better by making it into a big deal. But, Reid and Langly never asked. If he didn't get up to check on something, or even if he did, if he came back to bed, they were just... there, like it was just part of being in bed with someone... like it was just part of being _in bed_. And he supposed that was because they understood in ways he was at once grateful for, but also wished no one had to.  
  
Reaching back, he put a hand on Reid's hip, scraping the surface of the dream he was no part of, just enough to find a masquerade ball. A hundred painted faces bobbing and twirling, over half-imagined velvet and frills, some sense of uneasiness, a hidden threat in the crowd. A dream about the case, he realised, after a moment. Should he wake Reid? If it was just the two of them, just the three of them, he'd do it, but he was sure there were things neither of them wanted on display when Byers woke, and he knew how Reid got after those subtly frightening dreams, so different to the space after outright horror. No, he'd wait, let the dream play across the inside of his skull, maybe reflect a little joy into it, instead. A handsome blond chevalier, a curtained alcove ... oh, that wouldn't help _at all_ with Byers still here...  
  
He curled his toes and pointed his foot, trying to crack his ankle, brain catching up just a little late. Something against his foot--? Too much blanket. Too many people in this bed, all of them in weird places.  
  
Langly twisted to look over his shoulder, and then rolled off Byers to face the twins. "You sleep okay?"  
  
"I've slept better, but I can't remember the last time," Chaz joked, quietly, hand absently kneading Reid's ass.  
  
"Yeah, I heard that, but I wasn't sure how to get to that end of the bed without waking everyone up. He awake yet?" Langly tipped his chin, gesturing past Chaz.  
  
"Nope. Right now, he's having a delightful dream about ravishing you in the middle of a masquerade ball. I'm... He's getting creative with it, too! I'm not even sure that's physically possible, but I almost want to try." Chaz blinked a few times, and offered a bright, wide-eyed smile. it looked terrible on him. "Been awake long?"  
  
"Can't tell. No windows and no sense of time. I could check the time, but I don't know when I got up. I've been trying to figure out that building. It had to come from somewhere -- buildings don't just grow on hills. There has to be some record of it being built, and then being assigned to its current use. I'm going to be pissed as hell if that's unscanned paperwork sitting in an archive somewhere, like the X-Files." Langly stretched, running his foot up Chaz's leg.  
  
Reid squeaked. There was no other word for it. And as Chaz opened his mouth to say something about it to Langly, his eyes rolled back in his head, as Reid tensed and shuddered against his back, leg winding around his own.  
  
Langly looked on, wide-eyed. "Hell of a dream."  
  
"Yeah, I'm--" Chaz's eyes drifted up to Byers, who was watching them, uncertainly. "I'm sure there's a subject that's appropriate right now, but I'm not wearing any pants and I'm awake enough to be aware of that fact, so I'm just going to stay over here, with Spencer, and maybe pretend I'm still sleeping."  
  
"Why are we sleep--" Reid groaned pathetically, as he discovered what woke him, his mind still filtering Chaz's warnings about the number of people in the room as part of the dream. "I'd say I'd give you the pants back, once I get out of the shower, but I'm not sure that's a good idea at all." He sat up and spotted Byers, and then reached down and pulled the blanket over his chest, as he finally realised what that vague sense of alarm had been. "Oh. Right. Hi. I'm just going to, ah..."  
  
Langly draped himself over Byers's legs until he could reach under the bed. He threw a ratty, plaid bathrobe at Reid. "The good one's in the bathroom, but that'll get you there. I think you still have clothes in my closet."  
  
"We should--" Byers started, but Reid cut him off with one raised finger.  
  
"I'm taking a shower. If you want to talk to me before breakfast, I can be bribed with coffee."  
  
"I can also be bribed with coffee, but I'm pretty sure you don't want to talk to me. I'll take coffee as a bribe to shut up." Chaz reached back and pulled the pillow Reid had been using under his own head and the blanket over it. "Or I can just go back to sleep."  
  
"You should probably sleep. I still have your birthday present somewhere, and you definitely want to be awake for that, when I find it."  
  
"Are you going to be all right, if I get up and--" Byers sat forward and paled, gaping, as his back straightened.  
  
Langly looked up. "I think the real question is whether _you're_ going to be all right."  
  
"If I'm going to be the last person in this bed, I should get up so I don't wind up on the floor." Chaz peered over the edge of the blanket. "What is with people not putting beds against walls?"  
  
Langly called after Reid. "I'm putting your bed next to a wall so Villette doesn't fall out of it, just so you know. I'm designing that room so he gets a wall."  
  
The only response was the bathroom door clicking shut.

* * *

Dr Reid did not look well, Byers thought, watching him pour a cup of coffee on the other side of the kitchen. He'd come to accept the dark rings around the man's eyes as normal, but the whole way Reid held himself, today, he looked like a wounded animal. With a wary look at Byers, Reid folded himself into one of the kitchen chairs.  
  
"You've been trying to say something to me since last night. I assume that you slept with Langly again, and it's good of you to let me know, but I honestly don't care, especially right now. I'm a great deal more concerned about what Garcia's going to say, but I'm also not the one who has to tell her."  
  
"No, I didn't. That part's easy. Like I said, what you saw was pretty much what there was to see." Byers sipped his own coffee, trying to delay the inevitable. "But, he said a few things I wasn't sure how to take and since some of them were about you, I thought I'd get your opinion."  
  
"I really can't use chopsticks, I really can eat cheese, he did say he was in love with me, I'm definitely in love with him, and I do know you can hear everything through the bathroom vents. Did I miss anything?" Rather than lift his elbow off the table, Reid lowered his head to rub his eye on his hand.  
  
"He's under the impression you want to sleep with me."  
  
"He's wrong. Nothing personal, but he's wrong." Reid chuffed in tired amusement. "I know what he's seeing, though, and it's weird that he even knows to look for it."  
  
"He said we were ' _nerd-flirting_ '. I thought that was a lot coming from him." Byers huffed and folded his arms, coffee still in one hand.  
  
"Statistically, he's right. Our relationship -- yours and mine -- aligns with the early stages of romance among academics. Of course, what he's not seeing is that you and he exhibit a similar pattern, and one much further along that path. But, it's not something I'd have expected him to have an eye for at all." Reid shook his head and regretted it. "I have the most incredible headache. I thought I was over this."  
  
"Breakfast," Byers decided, nodding. "Too much coffee, not enough food. And you only slept about five hours."  
  
"Five's enough," Reid insisted, knowing damn well it wasn't after what he'd been through. "Can we skip the breakfast part of breakfast? I don't think I can look at an egg, right now."  
  
"I think there's still some casserole, if Frohike didn't finish it. What kind of casserole? I don't know. I find it best not to ask, when Langly's cooking. It's good, but it probably has two pounds of cheese and a quart of sour cream in it. You know how he is. Don't quote me, but I think it also has chicken and potato chips in it."  
  
"I'm discovering that Midwestern casseroles are really just college food turned up to eleven. They're great until you ask what's in them." Reid rubbed his face, exhaustedly. "It's not going to be the worst thing I've eaten this week. Let's go with that."  
  
Byers crossed the kitchen to dig through the fridge, pulling out a lasagne pan and a large ziploc bag. "Frohike made raisin rolls. You want one?"  
  
Reid opened his mouth to answer and his stomach growled loudly. "I think that's a yes."  
  
Byers pitched the bag across the kitchen, and it skidded to a stop on the far edge of the table, just short of Reid's coffee to one side. "You might have to stand up to reach the butter, but it's on the table."  
  
"Thanks." Reid nibbled at a roll, thoughtfully, while Byers rattled plates on the other side of the kitchen. "So, back to the point, why does Langly think we are or should be sleeping together? How did this even come up?"  
  
"One or more people I care about would be dead, if not for you. And I thanked Langly for holding onto you, after that night, because we needed the help. We definitely need it, now. And he basically said if it hadn't been him, it would've been me." Byers pushed buttons on the microwave. "And I keep telling him I'm not flirting with you, but he's convinced."  
  
"Have you considered this is because he wants to sleep with both of us?"  
  
"If you'd said that to me on any other day, I'd have laughed in your face. All these years, I never even imagined it. He's such an _asshole_!" Byers huffed, putting the pan into the dishwasher. "In general, I mean. About this, too. Even _more_ about this!"  
  
"I knew," Reid admitted. "I knew before you did. He told me, and he said if you ever asked him, he'd only say no once. And I decided that was something I could live with, even if I didn't expect I _would_ be living with it."  
  
"You knew." Byers just stared.  
  
"I said I wanted something serious. I think he was just trying to figure out how upset I'd be that he was living with someone he wanted to sleep with -- someone he was already literally _sleeping_ with. I thought I'd mind. I really considered being upset. But, I just can't. Besides which, I don't think there's any questions left about our relationship with Agent Villette, after this morning, so I'm not entirely sure where I'd even fit 'upset'. I'd apologise for this morning, but I was asleep at the time."  
  
"We don't sleep in his bed. It's always been my bed or the couch. But, last night, he didn't want you to show up and not be able to find him." Byers switched plates in the microwave and pushed more buttons. "So, I know I was somewhere I didn't belong, this morning. There's only one other time I've ever been in that bed, with or without him, and I think you know when that was."  
  
"I do." Reid finished his first cup of coffee and got up for a second.  
  
"Grab mine, too?" Byers asked, and Reid did.  
  
"The important thing is that he loves you, and it has nothing to do with the fact that he wants to sleep with you, as far as I can tell. He's not pining. He loves you openly -- I've heard him say it to you, I know he's there when you need him, most of the time. But, he'd also like to sleep with you, on _your terms_. The two don't really seem to have anything to do with each other, in his mind, and I can say the same about his relationship with _me_." Reid traded Byers's full cup for the hot plate of casserole, and went back to the table. "You'll notice I don't say he's in love with me. I say he's _said_ he's in love with me."  
  
"You don't believe him?" Byers took the second plate out of the microwave and returned to his seat.  
  
"I do! I just also suspect it's a trauma reaction, and I know he's thinking it, too. He almost said it a few days earlier, and then told me he wasn't going to insult me, so I know we both passed through that conclusion. I don't know that it matters. You should ask him about the first time _I_ said it, if you want 'insult'." Reid chuckled tiredly, picking the casserole apart with a fork. "So, maybe he's wrong. He wants to be right, or he wouldn't have said it. I'll take that. He's already said he expected it to take years."  
  
"You two are weird." Byers shook his head.  
  
"Consider the last thirty years of your life, and then look me in the eye and say that again." Reid waited, fork still between his lips, as he tried to figure out what he'd just put in his mouth. Definitely surprisingly edible, like most of Langly's cooking.  
  
Byers looked up and held Reid's gaze. "You two are weird," he pronounced, firmly.  
  
"Maybe," Reid admitted, shrugging one shoulder. "But, for the most part, this conversation isn't actually about me. It's about the two of _you_. What are your intentions, and have you told Garcia? I don't think she's going to take it as well as I have, but I've been wrong, before."  
  
"Is there really anything to say? 'Sorry, honey, my best friend wants to boink me, but only if I ask him to!' That's just making trouble! I'm not going to ask him to!" Byers gestured with a loaded fork, shoving his plate just in time to catch a stray glob of sauce and cheese.  
  
"You already have," Reid reminded him. "It's why we're even having this discussion."  
  
"In my defence, i was distraught and probably drunk. It was the first time in thirty years anything like that had even crossed my mind, and I still don't understand what happened, there."  
  
And Reid thought that was because he didn't _want_ to know. "Still, you've opened that door. Have you even told her that?"  
  
Byers put his face in his hands. "No."  
  
"It was early enough in the relationship, and I know she wasn't ready to commit, yet, because of Holly, so you may be able to let that one go, but if this ever even crosses your mind again as something you might want to do, you have to tell her. You _have to_ , Byers, because if you ever do this again and you don't tell her, _I'm_ telling her, because she doesn't need you jerking her around like that."  
  
"Who are you to decide--"  
  
"I'm _her friend_. I have watched her relationships for the last thirteen years, and she deserves to know, if for no other reason than to know that whatever you're obviously not telling her, it's not that you're a _serial killer_! Did she tell you about that one? Probably not, but she was crazy about him, right up until he shot her." Reid's eyes flashed. "But, I like you, and I like her even more, and if the two of you are going to have a functional relationship, you have to get it on the table what you're going to have secrets around, what subjects you're just not going to discuss. She and I? We don't talk about cases, because that's the job. You already expect that. You've had at least working relationships with FBI agents, before. She's not expecting you to be--" He gestured with an empty fork, and then shoved his other hand through his hair. "Look, strictly for purposes of comparison, what if she were sleeping with _me_?"  
  
"She wouldn't!" Byers recoiled, confused.  
  
"No, she wouldn't. And I wouldn't. But, what if she was?"  
  
"I'd want to know," Byers grudgingly admitted. "Maybe not that it was you -- I'd never be able to look at you again -- but, I'd want to know."  
  
"And that's why you have to tell her." Reid stabbed the fork into the casserole, where it stayed standing when he let go of it, to pick up his coffee. "Do you know why I know? I know because Langly called me for _permission_. I told him it wasn't any of my business, and I wasn't getting involved, but he told me before it happened."  
  
"He said he was going to get a drink, that he needed a drink, first."  
  
"I think it was more like four drinks." Reid picked at the casserole. "And I don't know exactly what happened between you. He didn't tell me, and I'm not going to ask. But, I know what happened between us afterward, and if the two of you haven't talked about that, maybe you should. And that's all I'm going to say about it."  
  
Chaz appeared in the doorway, wearing his clothes from the night before. "I answered your phone. Prentiss said to tell you she'd clean up Fitzgerald, and, I quote, 'Wheels up in thirty'."  
  
Reid looked down at himself, still dressed in Langly's bathrobe. "Are you _kidding me_? It's the middle of the night!"  
  
"Quarter after ten. Go get dressed. I'll drive you." Chaz held out the phone to Reid, their shared thoughts full of the fact he knew this was wrong. They both knew something more than just a case had happened. "Take my bag. It's got everything but pyjamas in it, and I'm already grounded."


	39. Chapter 39

Rossi was waiting, when Reid got out of the car, and he pointed at Chaz and gestured for him to join them. "There is a case in Nebraska, and it is not the case we are supposed to be on, but it's the one we're taking. We are getting on the plane, and I am going to strongly advise you to come with us, Villette."  
  
"I can't. I'm supposed to be holding down the office. The rest of my team's in Michigan." Still, Chaz felt the dread creeping up his spine. "What's going on?"  
  
"I will personally call both Falkner and Duke, and I do not think either of them will argue with this decision. I'm sure Duke can fill in for you, while you're unavoidably called away. Get on the plane, Villette. You _really_ need to come with us."  
  
Not 'we really need you', Chaz noted, and that was what made up his mind. "Call Falkner," he said, heading for the car. "I have to park properly."  
  
"Quickly," Reid urged, backing into the space beside the stairs, not to get on the plane until Chaz got back. He'd put the pieces together in an order in which they made sense -- the last raid had caused exactly the kind of problems they'd expected, and the backlash had come down much too fast. Whether he was correct remained to be seen. "We have to get off the ground. Prentiss can handle Fitzgerald, but we have to not be _here_."

* * *

"Are you going to let me in?"  
  
Frohike looked at the face on the camera in the steam tunnels. There was no way. He flicked the switch for every room in the house. "I need you both up here, _right now_. We have a problem."  
  
"You can't just leave a woman standing in the sewer, Melvin."  
  
"The hell I can't," he muttered under his breath.  
  
Langly and Byers appeared together, which wasn't surprising. Last he checked, they'd been snapping at each other over pins in the map, Langly yelling about requisition forms.  
  
"What's the-- Oh, shit." Langly pulled his glasses off and wiped them, before he put them back on and leaned over Frohike's shoulder. "You're fucking kidding me."  
  
"How is that even possible? How is she here?" Byers leaned over Frohike's other shoulder, looking entirely horrified.  
  
Langly punched through to the speaker next to the door, adding enough static to the line to make his voice unrecognisable. "Sorry, lady, you got the wrong place."  
  
"Now is not the time to bullshit me, Melvin. Not with a contract on your heads. One I _haven't taken_ , I might add."  
  
"How the hell did she find us?" Byers hissed.  
  
"Better question: Who else knows? She said there was a contract." Frohike took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "We have a serious problem."  
  
"We make her disappear," Langly decided. "If she walks away, she's going to sell us out, and you know it. That's what she does. That's what she always does."  
  
"You don't like corpses, Langly," Byers pointed out.  
  
"We don't have to kill her! Just bring her into the airlock and knock her out!" Langly gestured at the screen. "And then we can disarm her, tie her up, and ask her a few questions, before we airmail her to ... Puerto Vallarta's a little far from here, isn't it."  
  
"You can't just mail people to foreign countries, Langly." Frohike sighed, watching the woman, as she leaned on the buzzer again.  
  
"Oh, what, now you're too good to mail someone to Mexico? Where the hell was that when you mailed _me_ to Mexico, huh?"  
  
"We should probably open the outer door, at least. He's right. The longer we leave her standing out there, the bigger problem we're going to have." Byers stood back up and dragged a hand down his face, letting it settle over his mouth. "We have to do _something_."

* * *

"Here's what's happening, as far as I can tell." Rossi pulled a shot bottle out of his own bag, emptied it into a cup of coffee, and handed it to Reid, ignoring the disapproving look from JJ. "Prentiss got a call specifically requesting our presence on a case in Baltimore. It's the middle of the night, but apparently it was a situation involving a mass shooting -- the call came from the office of the Governor of Maryland, and the night desk thought it was important enough to call her at home and let her know. Now, in a situation where somebody pulls political strings, we still have to alert the locals that we're coming, so she called Baltimore PD. Guess who had no idea what she was talking about? So, this looks very bad, but she didn't want to make it worse, before she found out what was happening. So, she called back the Governor's aide and said that she'd see who she could raise at this hour, because we -- half her active team, and the half involved in last night's raid, which she suspects triggered this -- had already been sent to handle another case. It was the first thing she grabbed off the pile -- looks like something out of a grade-B horror movie. Farmers finding bodies staked out in the corn like scarecrows along the I-80 corridor, through Nebraska. The State Patrol requested our assistance when the fourth body was found, on Monday."  
  
"Nebraska." Chaz covered his mouth, trying to hide all trace of the laugh he'd swallowed.  
  
"Excuse me just one moment. I have to make a call. Only _two_ members of the task force are on this plane," Reid pointed out, with a sharp look at Rossi.  
  
"Don't look at me. Prentiss apparently only called you, me, and JJ. Villette's _my_ decision, and if you'd brought Frank, he'd be here, too, but we had to get off the ground."  
  
"She called him and got _me_." Chaz did not look amused.  
  
"That may mean she thinks _I'm_ the target, so it's possible this isn't Fitzgerald at all. The three of us have had our hands all over more than one case we shouldn't have, this year." Reid gestured with his phone, realised he was holding the wrong one, and switched.  
  
"The twentieth-century analog boy finally got a personal cel?" JJ raised her eyebrows.  
  
"Analog boy's a little tired of getting his phone tapped, thanks. I'd rather not answer any questions about it, because I don't understand it well enough, but I know that it doesn't have GPS and it's _almost_ untappable. You could do it, I'm told, but it would be more difficult than our work phones, which I'll tell you, I still have some concerns about, after Narcisse. Do we know how she did that, yet?"  
  
"I could ask for you, but you're going to understand even less of it than I will." JJ shrugged and sipped her tea.  
  
"I don't have to understand it. Frank's interested in making sure it doesn't happen again." Reid held up a finger and hit the delayed message button on the phone. "Hey, guess who's in _Nebraska_! Probably not going to be home for dinner, so you'll be cooking just for yourself. Really wish you were here. Call me when you get this, and if I miss you, I'll call back as soon as I can."  
  
"Why do I feel like you just said a lot more than I heard?" Rossi watched Reid across the top of his own coffee.  
  
"Because you know how careful I am with words?" Reid took a swig of his spiked coffee. "How many rooms do we have, and where are we staying?"  
  
"Two rooms in the cheapest motel in York, Nebraska, which is right near the latest crime scene. On paper, the assumption is that you're rooming with me," Rossi answered. "My assumption was that you'd be rooming with JJ, as usual."  
  
Reid offered Chaz a wry smile. "It's because she's the only one who can stand me."  
  
"You wake up screaming. I'm a mother. That's just three in the morning, in my house."  
  
Chaz almost blew coffee out his nose, a dripping hand pressed over his mouth. It shouldn't have been that funny, but they were both still tired enough that _everything_ was funny. "Not while I have my mouth full! We only have clothing enough for one of us!"  
  
"So, change of plans; I'm rooming with Villette," Reid announced, shrugging. "I'll pay for my own room, if I have to, but I'm not sticking either of you with this guy."  
  
"Brady and Tan were beside themselves, when they figured out they could stick me with _him_." Chaz blotted coffee off his thigh and the seat, as Reid rambled on.  
  
"And neither of us has slept properly for days. Also, someone has to feed him. Someone has to feed _me_. I was in the middle of the first actual meal I've had since Tuesday, and I had to _stop eating_ , so I could get rescued from whatever isn't happening in Balti..." Reid froze, coffee halfway to his lips. " _Where_ in Baltimore? This has to be a coincidence. And I need the nearest named places to where the bodies were found in Nebraska -- towns, unincorporated census regions, whatever. I need to know where we are, because I want to believe this is a coincidence, because if it's not, someone knew we weren't going to Baltimore, and we have a _problem_."  
  
"I know what you're thinking, and it's the sleep deprivation talking," Chaz assured him, resisting the urge to reach out and touch him. "Check to make sure, but I'm already sure, because it's the wrong way and it's the wrong _one_. Besides, I'm assuming Nebraska knows we're coming, so it's unlikely this one's a setup."  
  
"I know you're right, but I have to be absolutely certain, before we hit the ground."

* * *

"Melvin, is this any way to treat an old friend?"

Langly choked on whatever he'd been about to say, when Byers clapped a hand over his mouth and put the other hand on the back of his neck to make sure it stayed there.  
  
"An old friend? Is that what you are?" Frohike asked, setting down a kitchen chair at the end of the sofa. "I seem to remember you screwing us an awful lot, and not in any of the good ways, Yves."  
  
"Me? Screwing _you_? Do you know how much money I lost because the three of you were always involved _somehow_? You're lucky I like you! I could have killed you long before the funeral you had, but no! You were all just so... sweet and stupid, it would've been like drowning a puppy." Yves tried to sit up from where she lay on the couch, wrists and ankles still zip-tied. "And that's why I'm here, by the way. Someone is trying to drown my puppy. I got offered a lot of money to remove the three of you... Two of you, anyway. With different names, but I knew those faces, when I finally saw them. You should've been more careful coming back from dinner with your girlfriend, Byers."  
  
Langly pried Byers's hand off his face. "I rode a motorcycle through the loading bay door, and you spotted _Byers_?" He turned, a bare inch from Byers's face, nearly jamming his finger up Byers's nose as he raised it in irritation. " _I'm_ the one who needs to be more careful, Byers? _Me_?"  
  
"Well, I knew he'd been seen with a blond woman around this little coffee shop with excellent chocolate cake -- you have to stop using that corporate card, Byers -- so I started watching, and sure enough, in walks the man who looks like everyone else! Maybe a little rounder than I remember, but it's been at least fifteen years. No one's _quite_ the same. And I followed him back to the apartment rented to my other target, and I think to myself, 'Oh, how nice! They've moved up! It's even zoned residential!' Except the apartment number doesn't exist in the building, and Byers didn't come back out, so I started looking more closely. Finding the steam tunnels said it would be near enough to walk, so I went down and mapped them out, until I found your big, bad vault door, and I thought of the utterly insane number of locks you used to have on the front door that would've come right off the hinges if you hit it hard enough. When I figured out I was somewhere in the warehouse district, it pretty much had to be you." Yves smiled a little condescendingly. "You were always stupid and obvious, and it worked for you, because no one expected it. But, I know you, and you'd better hope my current employer doesn't."  
  
"Is it too late for you to take the job to kill us?" Frohike asked, suddenly.  
  
"Are we faking our own deaths again?" Langly demanded, folding his arms. "This is bullshit. I'm not starting us over again."  
  
"No, we're letting her lead us back to this 'current employer'."  
  
"Wait, I thought you said you didn't take the job." Langly straightened, looking down his nose in a way that wasn't terribly effective for actually seeing, because the bottom of his glasses were in the way. "What's this 'current' shit?"  
  
"And when did you start doing assassinations, anyway? I thought you were industrial espionage!" Byers looked confused.  
  
"I _am_ industrial espionage. That is still what I do, and that's how I ended up involved. This was supposedly just a contract to extract some information about Single Bullet Development, and their current projects, and honestly, boys, if you name your company that, how exactly do you think no one is going to find you?" Yves rolled her eyes.  
  
"It's been seventeen years," Byers pointed out. "I think we've been pretty effective, all things considered." He didn't mention it wasn't the only corporation they operated through.  
  
"Either way, I went digging and what did I find, but Chief Technical Officer Frank Arroway has been in the news! Nice French literature reference, but really, Langly, no plastic surgery?"  
  
"Hey, I like my face. Screw you."  
  
"And that's when I realised something was not right. Fifteen years, and suddenly you show up in the middle of one of my contracts, again, just like old times? I knew who you were, but the client never used those names, and information the client didn't pay for is just an extra bonus, in my line of work. Someone would want it, but I couldn't make the offer until the contract was over, just in case the client _did_ end up wanting it." Yves tried again to sit up, but couldn't fight the couch while bound. "Really, is this necessary? We could have a perfectly civilised conversation, if you'd just untie me and get me a cup of whatever swill passes for coffee around here."  
  
Byers blinked in astonishment. "Why would we do that? All you've done is confirm that you're still an active threat to us, and you're waiting for the right opportunity to make good on that."  
  
"I am not a threat! I came here to warn you that someone is trying to _kill you_!"  
  
"Yeah, I noticed that somewhere around the part with the murder-spider. Oh, or maybe before that, when I spent ten hours getting electrocuted. I mean, depending on who's trying, there's always the midget who tried to shoot me, but I'd be a little worried if she's ordering assassinations from prison." Langly huffed, his head cocking a second later. "And who _are_ you working for? I get that your clients expect a certain level of anonymity, because most of them are scumsucking corporate leeches, but if you're really trying to help, the least you can do is tell us who's trying to take out the contract on us."  
  
"I don't know his name. I don't even know if it is a 'him', but the manner of speaking, distortion aside, makes me think it is. He calls himself the Helmsman, and he always pays right on time."  
  
"Gentlemen?" Frohike looked up at his companions, to either side. "We've got the bastard."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEXT TIME ON VEXATION OF SPIRIT: Fuck fucking Nebraska. Seriously, though. But, the scarecrow killer is only a diversion from problems at home. Who was waiting in Baltimore? Can Yves be trusted? Find out after I take a quick break to hit the [kinkmeme](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/ambiguously_anomalous/requests), and then pull this fucking plot together!
> 
> If you're into the series and/or the kinkmeme, you can find all involved parties at the [Vexation of Spirit](https://www.pillowfort.io/community/Vexation%20of%20Spirit) community on Pillowfort, where there is also fanart and other people's fic!


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